Long May You Run
by Laora
Summary: "You have forged a bond that cannot be broken…" [Twenty-two arcana, and those he left behind. Persona 3.]
1. fool : hermit : magician

**_Spoilers_ _through the end of The Journey._** _I haven't played the Answer (and don't intend to, unfortunately), so that plot won't be included beyond what it explained of the game ending._

 _This is a vague sequel to my fic, 'All That Remains,' which is Minato's POV through the missing month in February. However, both of them stand independently; it's just that there are a few common headcanons between them, and the angst may hurt worse if you read both of them. Ye be warned :)  
_

 _Also, aroace Minato, and his queerplatonic relationship with Aigis, are my ironclad headcanons_ _—no one can take them from me. Thus, don't expect any romance, though a few of the girls were so obvious about their attraction that their unrequited feelings squirmed their way into the scenes, anyway._

* * *

 **0: fool**

They remember nothing, and then they remember everything, as the cherry blossoms float by outside. They were supposed to meet on the rooftop—they were supposed to remember—they were supposed to protect their friends. All of them come to the same, awful conclusion as they stampede out of the auditorium, into the hallway, and up the stairs:

Minato is sick. Minato stopped the Fall.

Minato is dying.

They do not know why they know this, only that it is the truth. The voice that has been a whisper in Fuuka's head for the last month (there's something wrong you need to help something awful is happening to your friend) has grown suddenly to a roar, and for the first time since the Fall she recognizes it—Juno, returned to consciousness, knows with absolute certainty that Minato's miracle to stop the Fall was not without a price.

The others, too, have realized this—remember the despair in that expanse of stars, when Minato did not answer their calls, when he was beyond even Fuuka's reach, when Nyx had quieted, leaving behind the uncertainty of peace and loss. And then they forgot.

But they remember Minato, this past month—and everything that was so glaringly, horrifyingly wrong with him. They had worried—had dragged him to doctors and distractions and class even when he couldn't stay awake, stumbling over his feet, staring with pained eyes in a way they could never understand.

They do now. They know they have failed him.

The sun is brilliant and blinding as they burst onto the rooftop, and they squint, not waiting for their eyes to adjust as they rush forward, looking around.

They see Aigis, first, sitting on a bench and huddled over a person in her lap. There is only one person this could be, of course, and they are glad, at least, that he is not alone as they approach.

Aigis looks up, and Minato turns his head toward them, but neither of them say anything as the rest come upon them. By the time Akihiko drops to his knees in front of them, Minato has closed his eyes; his breathing is shallow; Aigis' tears are falling faster onto his face.

Akihiko shakes him sharply, telling him to wake up, but he does not so much as twitch.

"Minato," Yukari says, a little louder, stepping closer to kneel beside Akihiko. Her voice wavers, and she has to swallow before continuing, "You need to wake up—we remember, we—"

Fuuka stands a ways back, tears streaming down her cheeks; Koromaru trots forward, leaning up to lick Minato's face. Akihiko reaches for his neck, and finds a weak, slow pulse.

"He's exhausted," Aigis says, though she seems unsure, and she pulls Minato closer to her chest. "Stopping the Fall took much of his energy."

"He's been ill," Mitsuru says. The memories of Aigis this past month that never stayed in her mind, no matter how many times they met, are glaring and obvious to her, now. It's no wonder she eventually stopped trying, and knows nothing of Minato's condition. "For the last month, he hasn't been well—but none of us ever—"

She trails off, presses a hand suddenly to her lips, and takes a few quick steps forward. "We need to bring him to the hospital," she says. "My family's hospital, they'll be able to—"

Junpei steps forward automatically, reaching out with trembling hands to take him, and Akihiko similarly levers himself to his feet. But it's Ken that speaks up, his voice hoarse, "The rest of the school is downstairs, right? We can't just—"

The door slams behind them, and Aigis looks up automatically to see a thin woman in a pink suit. She is not a threat, and so she disregards her completely. "I am capable of using my persona," she says, and even as she says this, the motors on either side of her head begin to spin. Samarecarm, she whispers. Though the ghost of Athena appears, and light envelopes Minato's still form for several seconds, he does not wake.

The quick footsteps from the staircase stop abruptly, but none of them care enough to notice. "The doctors are familiar with the Dark Hour," Mitsuru continues, a little more desperately, even as Yukari pats herself down, looking for the pouch of healing items they've only ever carried around in Tartarus. "They'll know what to do—"

"They were familiar with it," Akihiko says, a little dully, and reaches to shake Minato once more. His hand doesn't leave his shoulder, even when it's clear it will not help. "We forgot everything—why would they still remember—?"

Mitsuru stifles a sob, looking around at the group—hesitating at Aigis' stony face before looking back down to Minato. "We need to do something," she says eventually, and attempts to regain her composure. "At the very least, they can run diagnostics, determine what's physically wrong with him—"

"Like they did the last few weeks?" Junpei mutters, and Mitsuru clenches her jaw.

"We have to do something," she says again, and Koromaru whines, licking his face and pawing at his arm; Yukari's hands hover, wanting to help but not having the first idea of how.

There's a nervous energy surrounding them on this rooftop, repressed memories buzzing at the front of their minds after so long erased. Ken's lip wobbles, and Fuuka has given up on wiping her tears away; Junpei's fists are clenched tight, and Aigis pulls Minato closer to herself.

For a moment, the world stands still—and Minato does not wake.

* * *

 **IX: hermit**

Isako's the one who finds them, with rebukes and suspensions and biting words ready on her tongue. They left the ceremony so abruptly, after all—and made such a scene, reflecting badly on her class and the school as a whole.

She's the one who finds them desperately clustered around a boy who will not wake up, and the words die like ashes in her mouth. Before she can call out to them, demand to know what's going on and make her way closer, a curiously mechanical sound comes from their direction—and then an enormous, armored monster appears like a ghost above their heads.

She stops short, staring in abject horror and wondering whether the stress has finally gotten to her—and then watches as a bright light encircles Aigis and the boy in her lap. She's rooted to the spot in confusion and horror, waiting for the light to dissipate, wondering what is going on.

(Aigis hasn't been to school in a month. Why hasn't she counted her as absent? Why has this not seemed important until now?)

Nothing about Arisato's limp posture seems to have changed, when he is again visible, and Aigis collapses into herself as Takeba sobs.

She must have made a noise, because Yamagishi turns around sharply; she stares at her for a moment before her face slowly grows more desperate. She begs Toriumi to call an ambulance in a tone she has never heard before.

Arisato has not so much as made eye contact with her since she saw his phone screen, yesterday, but he is her student—and someone she cares deeply for, beside. Her hand fumbles with the cell phone in her pocket, and she misdials the emergency number twice before it finally starts to ring.

"I'm a teacher at Gekkoukan High," she's able to stumble out, when the operator picks up, and Kirijo glances over her shoulder before returning her attention to the rest. "One of our students collapsed and won't wake up—we need you to send an ambulance."

She hangs up after confirming a few details, and shoves her phone in her pocket as she takes a few unsteady steps forward. Takeba is still kneeling at his side, and Aigis is holding him nearly upright, now, her face buried in his hair. His face is slack, his eyes closed; his clothes hang off his thin frame.

He looks terrible, and she's horrified that she's only realizing this now.

She comes level with the group, meaning to ask Sanada or Iori to help carry Arisato down to the ground level. She's sent a text to her colleagues; they will stretch the ceremony as long as they can, in the hope that no one will see.

She says that an ambulance is coming, and begins to ask Sanada for his help—but then Aigis stands. She lifts Arisato's limp body as if he's a feather pillow, and says with a voice steelier than Isako has ever heard that she will carry him to safety.

Aigis does not allow her to argue, and she's dumbstruck enough to miss the sound of her student's hydraulic joints as they all rush past her toward the stairs.

* * *

 **I: magician**

Kenji's worried, when Minato doesn't come with the rest of the class to graduation. But he hasn't been looking well, these past weeks—maybe he's just getting some rest, ditching this boring ceremony like Kenji only wishes he could.

Something sits wrong in his gut, though, and he keeps stealing glances to the empty seat beside Junpei. He wonders if he could will his friend to appear—wonders if he should risk texting him, asking what's wrong. He remembers their last conversation, yesterday, and the way Minato had tried so hard to smile at him. There was something wrong with him, then—but Kenji had not had the words to ask.

And then there's the scene with Junpei and Takeba and Yamagishi and the seniors, and for the moment all thoughts of Minato are swept from his mind. The auditorium is in an uproar, and Ms. Toriumi rushes out the door after them, probably to expel them for such unbecoming behavior.

Kenji takes his chance, pulling his phone out when he shouldn't even have it here in the first place, and shoots Minato a quick text—

teach will skin u for missing grad, where u at?

He hesitates before hitting send, glancing one more time to Iori's and Takeba's empty seats in front of him. Junpei, he understands, but Yukari's always seemed the straight-laced type. For them both to jump to their feet, equal parts horror and euphoria on their faces, is not only out of character but vaguely worrying.

Minato hasn't responded, and Kenji stares at his phone for another moment before stowing it again in his pocket. He knows where his friend's dorm is; he'll just swing by later, see if he skipped or if he really is sick.

The salutatorian has taken the stage in Kirijo's wake, obviously thrown off her game as she stutters through her speech—and she takes an inordinate amount of time at the end thanking everyone for their attention. Kenji gets the distinct impression she's buying time (though for what he can't guess), and she continually glances to the wings of the stage, as if wondering whether she can step away yet.

Then the principal takes the stage again, and Kenji allows his mind to wander because seriously, this guy does not know how to shut up. He zones out just enough that he thinks he can hear sirens outside, and he tries to sharpen his hearing, wondering what that's about. There's not much down this road except the school, after all.

They draw closer, still muffled by the school walls, but enough people have noticed by now that there are quiet murmurs throughout the auditorium. The principal seems to be sweating, and talks all the louder into the microphone. It doesn't help, but no one dares get up from their seat after that explosive show earlier.

(Minato had been pale and unsteady, yesterday—his name had been at the bottom of the final exam scores, when he's always been top of the class. He knows his friend is sick—he starts to wonder whether it's not something worse.)

Ms. Toriumi slips back into the auditorium, her face chalky as she hurries into the wings. None of the absent students have returned (including, he realizes for the first time, Aigis—the strange but beautiful girl who has seemed oblivious to all of his advances), and Kenji feels true fear take root in his gut.

The ambulance drives away, its sirens growing fainter until they disappear entirely—and Kenji glances again to Minato's empty seat, hoping that his friend is not riding in it.


	2. empress : aeon

**III: empress**

All of the hospital bills are paid for out of Mitsuru's personal accounts.

(She will pay for his funeral as well, if she must.)

She knows Minato has an impressive stash of yen at the bottom of his closet, found in Tartarus, intended for supplies, weapons, and armor for the team. And she knows, as the hours drag on and his vitals drop steadily lower, that he will likely never need a single coin of it again.

The Dark Hour is gone; Nyx has been destroyed; most of the victims of Apathy Syndrome have begun to recover. Humanity has no memory of that awful night when it was nearly eradicated.

By all measures, their efforts have been incomprehensibly successful.

As she sits by Minato's bedside late that night with her head in her hands, Aigis standing stiff and motionless beside her, she feels only that they have suffered an unimaginable loss.

She knows there's no reason _not_ to use Minato's money for the bills, but she feels like she needs to do _something_ for him when she has so utterly failed him this past month. It's irrational and stupid _,_ and she doesn't know why she is doing it except that she won't be able to live with herself if she does not. But now the money meant for protection will go to waste, either split among the team (who she's sure will never want it) or funneled to a charity. For Apathy Syndrome sufferers, she thinks vaguely. That's probably…

(Why is she thinking like this, like he's already dead?)

(Why is his hand so, _so_ cold?)

She remembers the battle; she remembers thinking in abject horror that Minato would not return from that final, desperate flight. He had left his Evoker and sword behind, after all—and all of them had been drained from their fight against Nyx.

Fuuka had not been able to sense him, and she had just begun to realize that he was dead when everything turned white.

And then, inexplicably, she had _forgotten_ ; Minato Arisato was only the quiet boy who lived in her dorm—the one with headphones perpetually attached to his ears—the one who scarcely smiled...the one who looked exhausted all the time, no matter how much he slept.

They were friends, in her mind, but not so close as they should have been. But she was his senior, and felt responsible for his health regardless; she dragged him to doctors and specialists and anyone she thought could help, for weeks, growing more and more desperate as no one found anything wrong with him. He had come along to all the appointments, resigned, exhausted, knowing that nothing and nobody could save his life.

He remembered everything—she's sure of that. Her heart is cold, heavy with the knowledge that her friend was waiting to die. "I'm fine," he said. "I feel better than I did last week. Don't worry about me."

She sobs into her hands, losing composure in a way she has not since her father's death. Aigis seems to have remembered, for she knew to meet him on the rooftop, and now refuses to leave his side—but that is small comfort when Mitsuru knows the rest of them should have done _more._

(It is of little consequence that they couldn't have done anything to save him. They could have provided comfort, at the very least—they could have been the family he built up around himself in the absence of any blood relatives. They could have done _something_ , but nothing they did meant anything when they remembered nothing important of their pasts.)

After her father's death, Mitsuru found strength and meaning in her teammates and their encouraging words, the bonds they shared. Now that even those have failed her in the worst way she could have imagined, she's not sure what she should be fighting for, anymore.

(But she doesn't need to fight anymore, does she? Minato has sacrificed _everything_ to make sure she is safe. She remembers meeting him last April, at the tail end of the Dark Hour—remembers wondering at his potential as Orpheus awakened days later. She does not remember thinking he would become so great as _this._ )

He did not need to die. Regardless of his link to Death, of his incredible ability to switch Personae, his sacrifice should never have been necessary. They could have found another way—they could have...

The heart monitor beeps, shrill in the quiet, and she watches as the oxygen mask covering his face fogs with every slow breath. The overhead lights are artificial and bright, and they gleam off Aigis' mechanical eyes as she stands over his bed, still as stone. The rest of the team are either in the waiting room or have already gone home—she told them to go on ahead, that she had a lot to take care of with the hospital.

It wasn't a complete lie, but...she's spent more time with Minato tonight then she's willing to admit. Visiting hours are long over, but every employee of this hospital knows her face. No one would dare try to remove her without her consent. Usually, she wouldn't take advantage of her status in such a way, but her heart is in her throat; her makeup has long been smeared and wiped away. She thinks if there were ever a reason to abuse her power, this would be it.

She couldn't understand the implications of his illness without her memories of the Dark Hour; even if she did, there was nothing she could have done. She _knows_ this, but no amount of simple platitudes will assuage the guilt rising in her gut when her friend is dying before her.

She's not sure anything—short of a miracle, short of him waking up and returning to health—will make it go away. But in his absence, she must be the leader of their group; she needs to hold them together when they are so close to losing themselves.

They have lost Ikutsuki, and Shinjiro, and now Minato—but she will not let them lose everything that they have left.

She forces herself to look away from the machines buzzing at his side, the IV drip hanging by his head, and wipes her eyes one more time before standing, looking to Aigis. "We should go back," she says, and Aigis does not move. "You know he's in capable hands—we can see him again in the morning."

Aigis does not so much as blink; Mitsuru hasn't seen her this robotic since they first met at Yakushima. "Aigis, let's go," she says, a little more forcefully, and reaches to touch her shoulder. "You can't do anything for him right now—and the others will want to be together, at the dorm."

Aigis frowns, but moves with Mitsuru toward the door. She's sure Aigis will sneak out at some point tonight and return to the hospital, but she'll do all she can for her teammates here and now. Even if they all just sit in the lounge for a few hours together in silence, she hopes it will do them some good.

She looks back to Minato for just a moment, taking in the image of him in the hospital bed. He's never been a person to take up a room, to fill a space just with his presence—but now that he's gone, the things she's missing are stark and unsettling.

 _He isn't gone. Not yet._ She shakes herself, grips Aigis' shoulder tighter, and steers them both out of the hospital and onto the deserted street. She checks her phone; Akihiko sent her a text an hour ago, saying they'll be waiting, back at the dorm.

The time reads 12:15AM, and her face contorts before she shoves her phone back into her pocket. The Dark Hour would have occurred while she was crying in his room, if it weren't for his sacrifice—and, likely, she never would have remembered it, if they were still alive to experience it at all.

Aigis turns to look at her; the moon reflects off her eyes and her metallic frame. Mitsuru swallows before striding forward without a word, purpose in her every step. She needs to keep this team together, no matter the cost to herself.

That night, she spends hours sitting beside Akihiko and Yukari and the rest in silence—and only allows herself to break when she is finally alone in her room.

* * *

 **XX: aeon**

Aigis stands in his hospital room as long as she is allowed. Then, when she's brought back to the dorm by Mitsuru, she sneaks out her bedroom window and returns to his side, engaging stealth mode and evading nurses in the lobby and hall.

She made a promise, and now, when he is at his most vulnerable, she will not allow him to be alone. She has spent many nights by his bedside, after all; he has been moved from the dormitory to the hospital, but that does not affect her duty.

Neither does the doctors' belief that he is dying.

Of course she understand the concept of death, the possibility that the human body could be damaged or sickened beyond repair. But she also knows that Minato is not sick; he is not at all injured. Her covert observations of him, when he was asleep in the days after the Fall, indicated as such. He had injuries typical of a difficult Shadow fight that quickly healed; he slept for two point four days longer than was typical for a human with deep exhaustion. However, exhaustion is not indicative of death, and she does not believe that he is dying.

The breathing mask on his face and the fluids inserted into his arm, however, defy her expectations, and she feels something unfamiliar in her Papillon Heart as she stares down at his still form.

It is due to that intimate contact, when she invited him to her room. It is because he touched her very soul, surely, that she is able to feel these strong emotions. But just because she feels them does not mean she understands them.

This frightens her more than she wants to admit.

Death has always been an abstract concept to her, mechanical as she is. Even when Ryoji revealed his true nature, when they both remembered their pasts intertwined, death has never been something she truly understood. Shinjiro died, and she mourned his loss—understood that it meant he would never return to them. Chidori, too: she understood that Junpei was inconsolable for several days, and locked himself in his room, and did not eat meals even when Yukari left them outside his door.

She supposes it's less the _concept_ of death she misunderstands, when she thinks harder on it in this dark hospital room, and more the idea of what comes _after._

Where have Shinjiro and Chidori gone, now that their bodies have failed them? When Aigis' chassis is destroyed, her consciousness is stored solely in her Papillon Heart until a new body is constructed. But humans cannot rebuild their bodies after a certain point; humans do not have a compartment where their soul is stored.

She does not know the answer. She thinks the only person who might know fell asleep in her lap sixteen hours ago, and has not woken up since.

The rest of SEES came in small groups, during the daytime, and each spent time sitting by his bed, holding his hand, crying into his sheets. Fuuka spent little time here, her hiccoughing sobs making her flee the room, while Ken cried into Minato's shoulder for nearly an hour.

Aigis was told to leave, that she could come back tomorrow, but she cannot leave him alone for so long. She ignores Mitsuru's and the doctors' orders and stands by his side, watching his chest slowly rise and fall, listening to the comforting whirring, beeping, _living_ sounds of the machines around him.

They're not keeping him alive. She's keeping him alive; his own will is keeping him alive. Aigis does not understand death, or what it represents, or what comes after, but she knows this much. Minato is not a human who would allow himself to die.

She stands close at his side, listening to the machines and the sounds of the hospital. Occasionally, she must enter stealth mode again, retreating to the corners or hiding behind the curtains as the nurses come in to check on him. All of their reactions are the same: heavy sighs, shaking heads, and gentle pats to his shoulder before they leave the room again.

Aigis is no expert on human biology, but she knows the machines' output frequency and amplitude have not changed since she first arrived. She must infer this to mean that his condition has not changed—however, she does not know whether this is for good or ill.

The sun rises, and as soon as she knows visiting hours to have started, she no longer hides when the staff enters. The first—a doctor whose name she did not bother to learn—looks startled at her appearance, but not for long. She stares at Aigis for only a few moments before sighing.

"Ms. Kirijo said you would be here," she says, moving toward Minato again in a way that has Aigis standing straighter. "I trust you will not interfere with our care?"

"His safety is my top priority," she says, and the doctor stares a while more before nodding.

The day passes slowly. Mitsuru comes by an hour or so later, her hair disheveled, still dressed in her Gekkoukan uniform. Aigis is not repentant as Mitsuru stares at her from the doorway, and after a moment Mitsuru looks away.

"I should have known better," she mutters, and runs a hand through her hair to get it out of her face. "Let me know immediately if anything changes in his condition—I'll...I'm going to be very busy, today."

Aigis wonders at this. Mitsuru has recently completed her education; the Dark Hour has been permanently eradicated. She supposes her friend still needs to run a company; perhaps she will be inquiring today as to whether anyone else has regained their memories. Mitsuru always seems to have something very important to do.

Aigis replies affirmatively, because she trusts her unconditionally, and they are friends, besides. Mitsuru nods gratefully (though she does not smile) before she leaves the room.

Fuuka comes in around noon, carrying two packaged lunches in trembling hands and staring at Minato with red eyes. She sits in the chair beside Aigis, and wordlessly holds one of the plastic boxes out to her.

Aigis does not need to eat—Fuuka knows this. But still she holds out her hand for several seconds, so Aigis takes the box, holding it silently as she continues to stare at Minato.

Fuuka, again, does not stay for long; her tears overcome her, and she reaches only to touch foreheads with Minato before fleeing the room, her mostly full lunchbox left behind.

Aigis hesitates before collecting it and depositing them both in the trash bin by the door. She wonders at the human peculiarity of trembling hands, and from what biological mechanism it originates. What purpose must it serve? She can only imagine what such uncontrolled movement would do to Yukari's aim, to the strength behind Akihiko's punches.

Akihiko comes in with Ken and a bulky gym bag, which he only opens once the door is closed behind him. Koromaru bounds out, whining quietly even as Ken shushes him, saying the nurses will hear. The three of them stay as long as they dare around the rounds; Koromaru jumps up on the bed, curls up against Minato's side, and lays his head on his chest; Ken grasps his limp hand tightly and refuses to let go. Akihiko fusses over his sheets and his hair like a mother would, talking quietly to him, saying that everything will be all right—that they'll do anything it takes to get him out of this alive.

When they finally leave, Aigis gives them the same promise she gave to Mitsuru, and embraces Ken automatically when he throws his arms around her. When they are gone, she wipes dog hair from the sheets, and prepares to lie to anyone who asks about the pile it leaves in the trash can.

Yukari and Junpei come in only a short while later, and Aigis wonders whether they were waiting for Akihiko and the others to leave. Yukari collapses onto the bed, lies over Minato's chest, and throws her arms around him. Junpei stands stock-still next to Aigis, his eyes bright, and says that the idiot should have come up with another solution, that he didn't need to—

He says that Minato has _sacrificed himself,_ and Aigis understands this to mean Junpei thinks he is going to die. She wants to correct him—Minato is not one to die, especially when he has only just created the world they have been striving so hard for. She knows him better than she knows herself, and she knows that he never would allow himself to die.

That new Persona he used, during the last fight—it was radiant, glorious, the most beautiful thing she has ever seen. _Messiah,_ Minato whispered, and it carried across the explosive, terrifying battlefield. It was a miracle, and everything she knows about miracles indicates that they carry with them happy endings.

Junpei thinks Minato is going to die, and Aigis is sure he cannot be further from the truth, but she doesn't know how to correct him. So she only stands silently until she is alone again, until Junpei leads Yukari out by the shoulders, saying that they should get dinner, that they can come back again tomorrow.

Aigis wishes them farewell, keeps one eye on Minato's heart rate, and does not move from her post.

Less than an hour later, as the sun sets outside, everything changes. Minato does not move—and that is the problem, that his rising chest has stilled, and the machines around her beep shrilly to tell the hospital that something is the matter. An alarm is going off outside the room, too, but Aigis' ears are filling with white noise—and she leans over him quickly, trying to ascertain what is wrong, what has stopped his breathing. But he does not appear injured. His face is pale, and his extremities are cold, and the mask covering his face no longer fogs with his breath.

She understands the physical signs of death, but he cannot be—he _cannot—_

Someone is shoving against her arm, but she will not be moved, not when Minato is in such danger. The person shoves for several seconds longer before simply moving around her, jumping to the other side of the bed and beginning chest compressions, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Standard, human, life-saving procedures, and Aigis recognizes them, but his life should not be in danger in the first place, because—

"Aigis!" someone yells in her ear, and seconds or minutes must have passed that Aigis was not aware of, because suddenly there are more people in the room. She turns automatically to see the female doctor from this morning. "You need to move away so we can help him—"

"I will not leave him," she says, and her voice sounds very small and far away, even to her own ears. At any other time she would wonder at the physics of this, but now her mind has only one focus, the most important mission she has ever had, and—

And the other doctor is straightening up from his ministrations, shaking his head and looking away, but he is supposed to be keeping him _alive_ and she wants to lunge at him except her arms are frozen, her legs are rooted to the ground. All she can do is stare at Minato's slack face as they pull the oxygen mask away, straighten his hair from where Akihiko had left it over his right eye, and pull the sheets up higher.

This isn't right. This _isn't right,_ and she understands the concept of death but refuses to accept this because—

The female doctor pulls again on her arm and this time her body follows; in a blink, she is seated in the plastic chair by the wall. There are tears in her eyes, unacceptably obstructing her vision, and her hands are shaking beyond use as she stares down at them. She needs to—tell Mitsuru, and the others, that the situation has irrevocably changed, that she has failed, and—

And Minato can't possibly be dead except that he _is,_ and she has never felt this way before. Not when Shinjiro died, not when she was defeated by Ryoji—not even during the Fall. This new feeling is terrifying and alien. She is not human, but her hands are shaking; she is not human, but she is _sobbing—_ her breaths come in short, spastic gasps that, should she require oxygen, would leave her severely lacking.

Aigis has failed, utterly, and there is movement around her but she does not care because _Minato is dead—_

"I've called Ms. Kirijo," the doctor says, and her auditory circuits pick up and process the words even as her mind refuses to accept them. "She's on her way over now—"

It doesn't matter. Nothing matters except the gaping hole in her soul, a burn on her Heart that feels like the shape of his gentle touch. She's left the room before her eyes clear enough to see where she's going; people yell after her, but this numbness is more absolute than even Orgia Mode as she tears through the hospital, out into the street and into the sunlight.

Before, the sunlight would have warmed her synthetic skin, made her think of Yakushima and summer and memories of her friends. Now, it only makes her think of all the things Minato will no longer get to see.

She promised she'd protect him. She promised she'd never leave his side. But now, he has gone away from her—and she knows why, and hates it, with everything in her. She would give anything to stop the Fall herself—she, a robot who's only recently learned of human emotion, would surely be less of a loss to the world than Minato Arisato.

She would give _anything,_ but her best will never be good enough—and under the beaming spring sunlight that he will never see again, she sobs her anguish to the sky, and runs, runs, runs.


	3. lovers : tower : fortune

**VI: lovers**

They're all in the lounge when Mitsuru gets the call. (All of them but Aigis, but Yukari supposes that nothing but God himself—and then, maybe not even that—could convince her to move. She thinks her shattered heart will have feelings about this, at some point, but for the last thirty-six hours, all she's had room for is terror.)

Mitsuru gets a phone call as the sun sets, and Yukari cannot hear what the other person is saying. But whatever it is, it isn't good—because Mitsuru is suddenly on her feet, unsteady, turning her head so her hair blocks her face from view. "I'll be there as soon as possible," she says quietly, and hangs up.

"What happened?" Akihiko stands as well, his face pale as he stares at her. Mitsuru shakes her head, doesn't look at any of them, and nearly runs out of the dorm.

Akihiko collapses back onto the couch, burying his head in his hands. Ken hugs Koromaru closer to himself, curled up together as they are in the armchair. Junpei clenches his fists, wipes at his eyes, and makes a low, growling sound in the back of his throat.

Yukari, too, knows what this must mean, but she only clutches at a sobbing Fuuka's hand, and begs for it to be false.

Aigis returns before Mitsuru does; her eyes are not red, but her face is wet with tears and her expression is one that Yukari has never seen before. "Aigis," Junpei says, too loud, and Yukari flinches. It's so clear on her face what has happened—so clear in the fact that she is here at all, without Minato—and she seems incapable of telling them outright. After a moment of silence, Yukari feels everything bubble up in her chest, suffocating and horrific and unimaginable, because—

She hasn't felt this since she was six years old, since her dad—

Fuuka is clutching to her, sobbing all the harder into her shoulder, and Aigis has not moved from the doorway, and Koromaru's whimpers go unheeded as the dark lounge seems to swallow them all whole.

Mitsuru doesn't return for the rest of the night, and none of them get any sleep.

.

She realizes that her phone is dead when she thinks to check the time, somewhere in the middle of the night. She only convinces herself to charge it the next morning, when she needs to use the bathroom anyway, and trudges upstairs.

Her eyes are red and her hair is greasy and awry, and she hasn't felt normal in a month but this is _different_. She splashes water on her face with shaking hands to try and calm down. It doesn't work, and she plugs her phone into her bedroom wall before collapsing onto her bed.

Fuuka knocks on her door some time later, waking her from whatever haze she's fallen into, and says quietly that it's lunchtime, that they've ordered delivery. Nobody wants to cook.

It's reasonable, she supposes, and she hasn't eaten for almost twenty four hours; but she doesn't have the energy to respond, let alone go back down to the lounge. She wonders, suddenly, if this is what he felt, when he was slowly dying, surrounded by his stupid, useless, _ignorant_ friends.

She muffles a sob into her pillow and doesn't respond, and eventually Fuuka leaves.

.

Her phone screen is lit up with notifications when she's next aware, and she wonders whether they're from her friends, concerned for her well being, right up until she sees the contact.

 _Mom._ She had…

They were supposed to meet, on the afternoon of graduation day. He had promised to go with her, to make her more comfortable, to make sure she didn't put her foot in her mouth—

He was supposed to meet her mother; he had even said "the sooner the better" when she promised to let him know once she made plans. She had assumed then that it was because he didn't want her to lose her nerve, but _now_ —

Half a dozen missed calls and twice as many texts, the most recent simply reading, "Yukari, please call me," and Yukari considers them before dropping her phone back to the floor, burying her face in her pillow. She'll deal with it later, maybe. He promised, and now he's broken it—he'll never meet her mother, never do anything again, and—

.

It's Mitsuru who knocks next—but she doesn't wait for a response, only opens the door carefully and steps inside. She looks exhausted, as Yukari looks up reluctantly; her hair is tied back thoughtlessly, tangled and greasy, and her face is pale.

"Your mother called me," she says as greeting, glancing to the blinking notification light on Yukari's phone. "She was worried that you weren't picking up your phone, and she'd heard that a student from the dorm had collapsed at school."

She supposes viciously that there's a first time for everything. Her mother hasn't worried for her well-being in years—not when she never came home over breaks, or ignored her calls, or got beaten up nightly by manifestations of humanity's consciousness. Why should she bother now?

"I told her that you were fine," Mitsuru continues after a moment, "but you should probably call her back."

"I don't want to," she whispers, and hates herself for it, because acting like a child in front of Mitsuru Kirijo will get her nowhere. But Mitsuru sighs heavily, stepping further into her room, settling down at her desk.

"I can't handle this either," she says quietly, and Yukari glances over to her. "I need to sign all the paperwork, at the hospital and morgue, since he doesn't have any family. And—plan his funeral, and make sure everyone hears so they know to come, and…"

She trails off, reaches back to fuss with her ponytail, and takes a shuddering break. Yukari understands what she means, at least; to have to plan three separate funerals for her loved ones in less than six months…

She wants to offer her help. She _should,_ and she's sure all the others are busy tracking down his far-flung friends, making calls and paying visits, but—

She can't. She _can't,_ and she hates herself for it, but she won't do anything but turn away from Mitsuru, hold onto her sheets tightly, and try to hold herself together.

When she looks again to her friend, eventually, her eyes are squeezed shut. "I need you, Yukari," she says eventually. "We can't let ourselves fall apart now."

"What else are we supposed to do?" Yukari asks, lashes out, because the Dark Hour is gone and so is he, and what's the point of SEES anymore if—

"How would that be any different than if the Fall had happened?" she asks sharply, and Yukari recoils. "He…"

She trails off, the strength suddenly gone from her voice, and rubs at her eyes before standing sharply. "Call your mother, please," she says, and closes the door behind her as she leaves.

Yukari watches her go through blurring eyes, and then looks down to her phone. Another text: "I just want to talk, please," lights up the screen, and she hesitates.

Her mother has been insufferable, an awful parent to her for the last ten years, but Minato had seemed so relieved when she said they were going to meet up. He was dying, but he had agreed in an instant to come with her. He had even asked for it to be scheduled as soon as possible, surely hoping he would still be alive when it happened.

The cheer in his eyes—always rare, but rarer still in the month after the Fall—is burned into her memory, and she prays that she will never forget the sight of it as, with trembling fingers, she picks up her phone.

* * *

 **XVI: tower**

He's sure he's never met Mitsuru Kirijo (though he's certainly heard of her corporation), but when she calls him personally one afternoon to ask if he could officiate a wake and funeral in Iwatodai, he supposes he's not one to refuse such a powerful woman.

His first question, of course, is who has died—and he nearly drops the phone when she tells him, her voice quiet. "What happened?" he asks, before he can stop himself, before he realizes how unprofessional or unwelcome such a question must be. Right now he doesn't care, because Minato was fine, _perfectly_ fine, the last time Mutatsu saw him, months ago. It must have been an accident, he thinks. He's sent off plenty of teenagers due to car wrecks and drug overdoses and sheer _stupidity_ , and Minato never once seemed ill when they talked—

"The doctors said it was exhaustion," Kirijo says, and Mutatsu recognizes her quiet voice for what it is: someone desperately trying to hold onto their control. "A fancy way of saying that they don't know."

Mutatsu grimaces, swallows, runs his free hand over his face. "I understand if you're too busy," Kirijo continues after a moment. "I just thought, since the two of you were friends—"

"No," he says, once he's found his voice, because— _damnit,_ it's Minato, that kid who never should have meant this much to him, and—"I'd do anything for that damned kid, of course I'll come down. When…?"

"Two days from now," she says, and he thinks something has relaxed in her tone. "At the local temple. I can meet you there to discuss the details, when you arrive."

His wife is there, when he ends the call after promising to leave in the morning; the anger that has so often been on her face, these last months, is absent as she asks quietly what's happened.

He shakes his head, rubs harshly at his eyes, and finds that he does not have the words to explain.

But he thinks it must be somewhere in his choked voice, on his old, wrinkled face when he tells her that he needs to officiate a funeral in the city he swore he left behind. He thinks it must be clear enough, at least, because his wife grips his arm and asks him to drive safely, and even his son—who has come out from the living room with furrowed brows—is empty of snide remarks and sharp eyes as he watches his father crumble.

(Didn't he consider Minato his son, when he had lost everything, when he knew exactly how stupid such a thing was? Hadn't he thought, on some of his worse nights, that Minato was the only thing keeping him on the rails at all?)

He has never— _never—_ thought that he would outlive Minato, not with the kid's health and the wisdom that a sixteen year old should never have. Mutatsu knows that he is nearing the end of his life—and after leaving Iwatodai, he was sure he would never be asked to send anyone off again.

But here he is—and he squeezes his eyes shut for a moment before turning to his bedroom, preparing to pack a bag for the trip, to leave tonight, no matter what he told Kirijo.

Once, he told that kid that nothing mattered in life because everyone died, anyway—but he finds, as he pulls a suitcase from the closet with shaking hands, that his friendship with Minato Arisato meant more to him than he ever realized.

* * *

 **X: fortune**

The flash email goes out late that evening, and Keisuke almost ignores it, so wrapped up as he is in studying for next year's medical exams.

But it's just about time for a short break, anyway—so he marks his place in the book, pushes his glasses further up his nose, and opens his email client, wondering what Gekkoukan could want with a recently-graduated senior.

 _Wake and Funeral Service for Minato Arisato,_ the header reads, and his breathing stutters in horror and shock as he reads the information below. A short paragraph about the boy's life (now a senior, if he had survived to attend school again—) above the details of the services.

Keisuke stares blankly at the included photograph—Minato looks bored, and tired, and his headphones dangle around his neck as if he was forced to remove them for the picture. He thinks it must be an old photo, because the Minato he's known in recent months hasn't looked quite so dead-eyed or apathetic to the world around him.

(But didn't Minato look so exhausted, when he sought him out last week to ask what he was planning to do with his future? Didn't Keisuke see the dark bags under his eyes and the sunken cheeks, the way his uniform hung off of him, and ask if everything was all right?)

(Didn't Minato assure him he was fine—and despite all the evidence to the contrary, hadn't Keisuke believed him?)

(What kind of medical student would he make, anyway, if he can't help keep one of his best friends alive?)

It haunts him, for the next few days, as if Minato's ghost is blaming him for not doing anything to save him. It continues as he dresses carefully for the wake, his fingers trembling as he tries to button his suit. He rubs at his eyes a bit too often as he mumbles to his dad where he's going, why he isn't studying—and he isn't stopped as he grabs his wallet and keys, walking slowly out the door.

It's late afternoon, not uncomfortably warm, and he sees plenty of people out and about. But he sees plenty of people dressed in black, too, making their way to the temple, and his heart swells to see so many willing to pay their respects to his dear friend. He recognizes many faces—people from art club, people he took classes with that never would have interacted with Minato during school hours. But, he supposes, his friend was part of the track team as well as Student Council; he's not terribly surprised that he made friends outside of his own class.

The wake is officiated by a large man with a bald head and red eyes, who reaches often into his sleeve for a handkerchief as he moves around the temple, making final preparations. It seems that the better part of the school—and plenty of other people from around town—have shown up. The casket at the front is open, and many huddle forward to pay their final respects—but Keisuke finds that he's utterly unable to follow them. He sits heavily in a seat near the middle, pulls his glasses off to rub at his eyes yet again, and fails to convince himself to look up as the ceremony begins.

(What kind of a medical student _is_ he? More importantly, what kind of friend has he ever been, if Minato didn't deem him worthy enough to hear of his own problems?)

The wake passes by in something of a blur, and he stumbles to his feet only when he sees others moving around him. His vision is unfocused, but he sees Fuuka, walking with a few of her friends several feet ahead of him. He blinks at her for a moment before remembering that she and Minato weren't just acquaintances from club; they were dormmates, and likely close friends. Maybe (he wonders with something approaching urgency) she will know more of what happened.

"Fuuka," he says, loud enough to be heard over the dull roar of a tightly-packed temple vacating, and she turns.

She looks _awful_ ; there are tear tracks on her cheeks, and deep bags under her eyes. But still a small smile grows on her face—and she pauses in her step, allowing Keisuke to catch up. "Thank you for coming," she says quietly, once he's in earshot, and then she resumes walking after her friends. "I know you're very busy with studying…"

"Of course I came," he says immediately; the thought of skipping this for his work never once crossed his mind. "I—tell me if this is out of line—but I was wondering if you knew what happened. He seemed okay when I talked to him at school last week, but…"

Fuuka grimaces, looking away as she hugs herself tighter. Keisuke's just about to retract his question, promise he doesn't need to know (though it will bother him more than he can say), when she looks back up to him, swallowing thickly.

"He...the doctors said his body had been shutting down for a month before—he passed. They...couldn't find a reason for it, so his official cause of death is exhaustion."

A month—Keisuke mentally counts back from graduation day, trying to see the significance, but he comes up empty. He supposes that was around the time that cult disappeared, though he hadn't been paying much attention to it—so buried in studying as he was. And, after all, what would that cult have to do with Minato's death? He knows his friend wasn't the type to join up.

And, too, it must have been a strange disease, for the doctors to chalk a healthy teenager's sudden death up to simple exhaustion. He frowns, staring at nothing in particular as he walks beside Fuuka, and wonders what mystery disease could kill someone like Minato in just a month.

He can think of nothing—and, based on Fuuka's face and those of her friends, they don't know either. He parts from them a couple blocks later with a small wave, as they turn toward their dorm, and he has to keep wiping at his eyes harshly as he walks alone back to his house.

His father isn't home, but there's a package of his favorite chocolate and a note set neatly beside his books. Keisuke swallows thickly before grabbing the candy off his desk, ignoring the scrap of paper as he turns away.

He knows studying tonight will be pointless, though he also knows that it's what Minato would have wanted him to do. He smiled, last week, when Keisuke told him of his renewed determination to enter the field of medicine—and had wished him the best of luck.

Now that he thinks on it, it felt like a final conversation. He had assumed at the time that it was because he was graduating, but now… Now.

(Did Minato know that something was wrong? He _had_ to have. But then why didn't he _tell anyone?)_

He grimaces against the sudden lump in his throat, and eats the chocolate in three bites, and doesn't bother to take off his suit before collapsing on his bed, suddenly exhausted.

He knows it's not what his friend would have wanted, but Keisuke doesn't touch his books again until almost a week later.


	4. hierophant : high priestess

**V: hierophant**

It's been a long time since they've attended a funeral for someone so young.

Mitsuko cries, and Bunkichi pretends that he doesn't; they keep their heads bowed and sit in the back row, allowing all these high school students to be near to their friend for the last time.

 _Exhaustion_ , said the young man who came to tell them with tired eyes of his own. Bunkichi wonders—if Minato can be taken down by something so simple—how the two of them have survived for all these long years.

There's a sign at the door refusing condolence money, but Bunkichi approaches that same gray-haired high schooler after the funeral, pressing the envelope into his palm. "Keep it, please," he says, even as the other opens his mouth to protest. "You young'uns need it more than we do."

The young man looks between Bunkichi and Mitsuko, both small and wrinkled and hunched in their age, and swallows thickly, bowing deep at the waist. "Thank you," he says, his voice cracking. "It isn't necessary, but we'll—we'll make sure to put it to good use."

Bunkichi smiles, pats the young man gently on the arm, and then turns to stump his way out of the temple.

The store is quiet, and they keep it organized and clean as best they can. Neither of them have been able to reach the upper shelves for a couple of decades, but their son—and, later, Minato—had always taken it upon themselves to help. Now that they are both gone, the unreachable shelves gather dust. Bunkichi eyes the step-ladder they keep in the back, wondering if it's worth the risk to keep the store tidy.

Mitsuko realizes where he's looking and chides him, her voice quiet. They'll be able to hire on some part-time help in a student, if they need to, but no one's asked after those books in months.

(He finds his stash of sweets—the one that Minato put quite the dent in, when he came by—and sighs before hiding it quietly away in the back room.)

(She sees the letter from Gekkoukan, detailing the arrangements to move and preserve their son's tree, and is glad they were able to tell Minato this, at least, the last time he came by to say hello.)

It's just about closing time a few days later when the bell chimes, and Bunkichi looks up to see a tall young man in a cap step tentatively inside. "Hey, uh, you guys still open?" he asks, one hand on the doorframe as he looks between the two of them.

"Of course," Mitsuko says, a little smile on her face as she stands from her stool. "What can we help you with?"

"Oh, I—uh—I'm looking for some books," he says, his face reddening even in the dim light as he lets the door fall shut behind him.

"Well, you're at the right place," Bunkichi says, and his wife's smile grows broader. Several students from the local high schools come in regularly, but this young man is unfamiliar. "What kind are you looking for?"

The boy's face grows even redder. Bunkichi laughs at him, not unkindly, and hobbles his way around the counter. "Art books, if you've got 'em," he says eventually, reaching under his cap to rub at his head for a moment. "For beginners. I wanna learn to draw."

Bunkichi hums in thought, trying to remember whether they carry those books at all. Mitsuko sighs, slapping him lightly on the arm as she walks past him. "They're up on the top shelf, I'm afraid," she says, pointing, and the young man looks up. "We sell mostly fiction, but you're welcome to take a look at whatever you can manage to get down."

"Huh," the boy says, blinking at the books that tower within inches of the ceiling, then turning back to the two of them. "How'd you get them up there?"

Bunkichi snorts. "We've had help in the past, young men like you to organize and clean. We've...well, we've been on our own for a little while, now."

He deflates a little, something like understanding behind his eyes. "Yeah, um…" he hesitates, swallows. "Minato, he's the one who told me about this place. Said you were good people, and all. I'm not much of a book person, but…"

He trails off, shoving his hands into his pockets and staring at the ground. Bunkichi looks at him a moment longer, and thinks he recognizes him as someone who spoke at the funeral.

"We'll give them to you for cheap," he says, on a whim, and the boy looks up sharply. "Employee discount, and all. 'S not like we were gonna sell them otherwise."

Mitsuko nods after a moment of thought, smiling at the boy. He swallows, looking a little uncomfortable. "I couldn't do that," he says, shaking his head, glancing between the two of them. "I can pay, you don't need to—"

"How about you help us organize the store, then, and we'll call it even?" Bunkichi cuts him off, nodding to the disheveled stacks around them—remembering a similar conversation he had with Minato, a year ago. The boy hesitates, looking around, but eventually agrees.

"Great!" he says, turning sharply for the ledger—and wipes a tear from his eye as he bypasses the till entirely to grab some sweets from the back room.

* * *

 **II: high priestess**

Fuuka's the one who cracks his bedroom door open, a week after the funeral; Mitsuru and Junpei stand a couple paces behind her, discomfort in their stances and their uneven breaths. She realizes—as she pushes the door wide enough to step through—that she's never seen the inside of his room before. She's curious how he might have decorated it, when he was always so private and simple in his day-to day life.

As it turns out, his bedroom is exactly what she might have expected.

His desk is neatly organized, with textbooks and some loose paper stacked high beside a closed laptop; his closet door is open, showing a modest wardrobe, consisting overwhelmingly of school uniforms. He had very few personalized possessions—nothing decorates his walls but a set of shelves full of odd knick-knacks she does not recognize—and really the only signs that someone lived here at all are the dirty washcloth by the sink, the rumpled sheets on the bed.

She takes a deep, shaky breath, and steps inside.

Even Mitsuru isn't sure exactly what to do with the sparse belongings he left behind; they pull the sheets off his bed and the clothes from his closet easily enough, but the MP3 player sitting on a worn notebook by his bed (and the headphones Fuuka made him, she realizes with a sinking gut) are left untouched, even as they move around with boxes. His room is nearly as empty as Shinjiro's was, though he lived here almost a year. Why, then, is it so hard to pack away?

Junpei's hands are shaking as he pulls a bag of yen from the bottom of his closet, some armor and weapons they kept around as backups, and Fuuka swallows down a sob.

"The hell are we gonna do with these?" he asks harshly, more than he probably means, as he throws a pair of brass knuckles at Fuuka. "He got rid of the Dark Hour, we don't need this shit anymore—"

"The company will take it all back," Mitsuru says, reaching for the rapier in Junpei's other hand before he can throw that, too. "Most of the rest of the things in this room belong to the school...I suppose everything else, we can give to a charity."

Junpei's face contorts, though Fuuka thinks it's probably what their friend would have wanted, and he thrusts a handful of protective shirts at Mitsuru. "Minato deserves better," he says, and Fuuka hesitates, her stomach flipping at the name she's tried so hard to avoid.

"He made a choice," she says eventually, and he turns sharply to stare at her. "In January, he decided that defeating Nyx was worth his own life. Shouldn't we respect that?"

"He was _wrong,_ " Junpei says, his eyes dark. "There must have been some other way—he didn't need to…"

He trails off, his breathing a little heavy, and swipes furiously at his eyes as he looks away. "He made his choice, Iori," Mitsuru says softly. "There's nothing you can do about it now."

"I _know,_ " he says, pulling another bag out of the back of the closet. "I just—all these people I'm supposed to be living for, I feel so _useless,_ you know? Chidori and Minato, they're—they were better people than I could ever be. And they both died to save my ass. It just...it's not fair."

All the anger in his tone is gone, now, and he determinedly does not look at either of them as he starts pulling energy drinks and stale snacks from the closet. Fuuka knows he's not wrong—knows he has more right than most to feel that way—and struggles for a moment to articulate her thoughts.

"He did it because he thought we were worth saving," she says eventually, and Junpei stiffens. "He loved us enough that dying himself was preferable to seeing the rest of us dead. I...I'm sure he didn't regret what he did."

Those precious minutes she spent in the hospital were as long as she could bear; she could sense his life force steadily draining from him, could feel something unbearably strong pulling at her friend's soul. But, too, she could feel his contentment with the situation; she has been able to read moods, especially since she gained Juno's power, and even through his coma she did not read anything in his thoughts approaching resentment or regret.

(She just wishes the nagging feeling of _wrong_ she felt every time she talked to Minato in February meant something to her back then. She knows she couldn't have done anything, but maybe a friend to talk to—someone who _remembered_ —would have been a comfort to him while he got steadily more ill.)

(She knows he did not begrudge her for it, but she wonders, sometimes, and she has regrets of her own.)

Mitsuru wanders to the shelves beside his bed in the silence that follows, her brows furrowed as she reaches toward a small set of keys. "This…" she trails off, and Fuuka looks up. "These are mine," she says, and Junpei stands, swiping at his eyes as Fuuka takes a careful step forward.

"I gave him the keys to my motorcycle," she elaborates, a little uncertain, and Fuuka pretends not to see the unnatural brightness of her eyes. "For safekeeping. I didn't think he'd really…" she trails off, turning to the shelf. It displays a couple dozen things that seem unimportant, to Fuuka: a phone charm, a child's bead ring, an old lighter. She looks again to the headphones coiled neatly by his MP3 player, and wonders if all of these were just as important to someone else, once.

"He had a lot of friends," Junpei offers, frowning over the shelf as well. "I mean, who else would these be from, right?"

"Yes, he did," Mitsuru says, still staring rather blankly at the keyring in her hand before sliding it into her pocket. "We should...see if anyone would like these back, I suppose."

Fuuka glances again to the headphones, and thinks that taking them back would be equally selfish and therapeutic for her grief. She reaches down to pick them up, taking the player and book with them—and then frowns at the latter. It's not something she's ever seen him write in, though it's clearly worn and well-loved. When she opens it gently, she's surprised to see that it's a hand-written, brightly illustrated children's book. She hesitates, flipping instead to the first page, where the name _Akinari Kamiki_ is printed in careful script.

"This is..." she trails off; the name sparks something in her memory, though she can't quite remember what. Junpei looks over, frowning, and swears after a moment.

"He told me about Akinari," he says, his voice low. "He...was pretty sick, I think. When Minato stopped mentioning him, I assumed…"

Fuuka grimaces, the memories returning to her as well—she grips the book a little tighter before closing the cover. "This deserves to go back," she says, and Mitsuru nods.

When she goes to place everything on his desk, though, something catches her eye, sticking out from between two of his textbooks. It's a folded piece of paper, and she hesitates before pulling it out, wondering if it's just a scrap of notes that got misplaced. But when she flips it over, her breathing stutters: _To SEES_ is written on the front in a shaky script. It's undeniably her friend's handwriting, and she crumples the paper a bit as she stares at it, her vision growing blurry.

"What is it?" Junpei asks. She must have made a noise, because both he and Misturu are at her side in moments. Both of them stop short when they see what's in her hand, though, and Junpei swears, turning away as Mitsuru takes a deep, shaky breath.

"He remembered," Fuuka whispers, and of course he did, of _course_ he did, when he was the one who died to save the world, when he was the one interminably linked to Death herself—

She doesn't think she has the courage to open it; her hands are shaking too badly to even grip the paper. Mitsuru reaches for it after several seconds, and Fuuka does not stop her; her friend's face is pale as she unfolds the note. She stares at it blankly for several seconds. Then, she places it back on his desk and walks quickly out of the room.

Junpei calls after her, but she does not turn or even slow down. Fuuka does not pay this much mind; her gaze is locked on the words written before her:

 _"Thank you for everything. I did this to stop the Fall, and I don't have any regrets. I cherish every memory I've made in the last year."_

She recognizes the tears only when they begin to mar the paper before her, and she hastily wipes them away, trying to preserve this message—this goodbye, when they were too late to hear his last words. It's—truly, it's nothing that she didn't know, it's what she told Junpei not five minutes ago, but reading this in Minato's writing, imagining him sitting at this desk, alone, struggling to write down his last words to his friends who couldn't remember…

There's a stack of letters at the corner of his desk, torn envelopes and creased paper, all written in different handwriting, all addressed to him. A child's blocky script, an elder's calligraphy, a foreigner's faltering hiragana—and she looks from this stack to the pen and blank paper set beside them.

His friends, who moved away from Iwatodai. They all deserved letters in response, but when he only had the energy for one, he chose…

There's a warm hand on her shoulder, and she turns to see Junpei, his lip wobbling, his eyes red. "Let's finish later," he says, his voice broken in a way she's heard far too often, lately. She nods, and clutches his MP3 player and headphones closer to her chest, and allows herself to be led back down to the lounge.

That night, she puts on his headphones with shaking hands and pushes play, and does not sleep a wink.


	5. devil : sun

**XV: devil**

Tanaka hopes that boy saw the newscast about his missing funds, and understood.

He has a reputation to uphold, after all, and that reputation doesn't involve giving away money to poor children. But through whatever insanity came over him—not to mention the long-term profits he's envisioning for himself—he handed over a few million yen like the nothing it was to him, and that charity worker had tripped over herself to thank him.

The letter would have gone in the trash had that boy not come by later in the evening. Tanaka's still not sure why he handed it over, but Minato had stared hard at him before slipping it into his jacket pocket. Weird kid.

It's nearing the end of the month, and he's got a series of budget meetings scheduled for the afternoon—but his secretary comes into his office, holding a large, crisp envelope and looking uncertain. "President Tanaka," she says with a small bow, "this came for you this morning. I thought you may want to read it personally."

"What is it?" he asks, frowning at her. He never bothers with mail, whether it be full of admiration or hate; he pays people more than enough money to deal with that for him.

"It's from Mitsuru Kirijo, sir," she says, taking a few brisk steps forward and putting the envelope on his desk. Tanaka's brows rise skeptically. She's one of the few people in Japan richer than he is—and a few decades younger, to boot. The fact that she inherited her wealth sours his opinion of her, and he does not bother to hide his displeasure as he considers the envelope. Such a young, foolish girl—now in charge of the single biggest business enterprise in the country. What he'd do to take that from her…

It's hand-addressed, and the return address reads Mitsuru Kirijo rather than the Kirijo Group—either it's a rookie mistake, or she's trying to endear herself to him by taking the personal touch. He sighs before picking it up, tearing the top and pulling out the bundled sheets of paper.

It's not on company letterhead, or even expensive stationery—it's typed, at least, but Tanaka finds his nostrils flaring in frustration as he stares at it. Where does this _girl_ think she's going in life, if she can't even be bothered to send formal correspondence the correct way? If he had pulled something like this at the start of his career, he'd be laughed out of the business world permanently.

The first sheet is a short letter, only a couple of lines, and he skims it quickly, his eyes narrowing. It doesn't seem she has a business proposition for him—"I hope this letter finds you in good health. I wanted to reach out regarding your acquaintance, Minato Arisato."

He pauses, blinks, wonders what Kirijo could want with a pretty boy like him. He supposes they're about the same age, and Minato had always come around in his Gekkoukan uniform. (Tanaka had assumed he was a charity case, since the boy didn't carry himself like he had money.) Why the two of them would associate, however, he does not know.

"Unfortunately, he passed away from a sudden illness on March 6," the letter continues, and an unfamiliar feeling settles suddenly in Tanaka's throat and stomach. He swallows, glances up to his secretary, and waves her out of the room before continuing to read: "I apologize that I did not think to reach out to you before now. We found the attached letter in his room, and I thought you may like to have it back.

"Minato mentioned you fondly, from time to time; if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me."

She left both a phone number and an email address before signing her name—it's obviously not company contact information, but he supposes, as he stares blankly at the letter, that this isn't a business correspondence at all.

He's almost ashamed to admit his first thought: all that time he poured into grooming Arisato was wasted.

The kid always came around to Paulownia to listen to him talk, no matter how exhausted he looked, no matter what the hell was going on with the rest of the city. He had told Tanaka that he had little interest in the business world—"It's interesting to hear other perspectives, I guess," he had said when pressed, shoving his hands further into his pockets. Tanaka had been frustrated, had resolved to turn him around to a business enterprise so he could earn a bigger profit out of him.

Arisato hadn't achieved the Japanese ideal of masculinity—or even, honestly, the Western—but he had something about him that caught people's eye. On days they didn't talk, he saw Arisato regularly go into the club he was clearly too young for—and never get immediately thrown out. Tanaka had followed him in wearing his street clothes, once, just to see what the hell he got up to in there, and the bartender had said that he just came in to talk to the old monk who drank upstairs.

What kind of teenager spends his evenings talking to sleazy businessmen and drunk religious figures? Tanaka's long since given up on understanding Arisato—focusing only on his current and future profits, what he could use this kid for.

Now, he's gone—along with that potential money—but Tanaka realizes, as he sits and stares at the papers in his hand, that there's something else rising in his throat too.

He wonders with something like revulsion whether he's actually started to _care_ for the damn kid.

Arisato's never been more than a pawn to him—a kid gullible enough to throw tens of thousands of yen at a stranger for promises of riches, a kid quiet enough that Tanaka could ramble uninterrupted for hours about corruption and profits. He never talked about himself, and Tanaka knows next to nothing about him—but somehow, over the last nine months, he…

No, he's being ridiculous. He is not _mourning_ _Arisato_ , and there are not _tears in his eyes,_ and he wipes furiously at his face before throwing Kirijo's note and the bundled letter from that stupid, _idiotic_ charity into the bottom drawer of his desk. He resolves, standing sharply and leaving his office behind, to throw them both in the shredder later, where they belong.

He cancels his afternoon meetings, ignores his alarmed secretary, and brushes off the colleagues who try to address him in the elevator. His hands, he finds, are shaking, and he shoves them in his pockets to hid it.

He takes the rest of the day off, driving to Paulownia Mall and wandering listlessly before making his way back home. The large house, always a source of pride, feels gaping and echoing.

(He never does get rid of those letters, and if a few million yen get anonymously thrown toward medical research, Tanaka will swear he knows nothing about it.)

* * *

 **XIX: sun**

She finds herself at the shrine, more often than not—sitting on the bench that her son so often frequented, staring at the playground equipment like it might hold the answers she's looking for. Akinari has been gone for nearly four months, now, but she is his mother—and enough people, even the children, recognize her that she is not questioned as she spends long hours in thought.

It's late March, but the afternoon is chilly, and she huddles into her jacket a little closer. She's just decided to go home for the day when a young man with pale hair walks up the steps of the shrine, looking lost. He looks to be about Akinari's age, and glances around the shrine proper before turning toward the playground. He's wearing a coat and thick scarf, and seems to be almost hiding behind them both as he clutches a school bag closer to himself.

He appears to be looking for someone—and his gaze slides over the children and young parents nearby before landing on her. He hesitates before making his way over; she settles back onto the bench, wondering what such a teenager could want with her.

(She remembers, suddenly, the boy who sought her out earlier this month. He had been Akinari's friend; he had Akinari's notebook; and though she had not wanted to say anything about it, he had the same look about him as her son did, in his last days.)

(She thinks maybe she knows what has become of Minato Arisato, but she doesn't know what this stranger could possibly want with her. Akinari never mentioned such a young man—only Minato, and the little girl who has long since moved away.)

"Are you Mrs. Kamiki?" he asks, standing a respectful distance away, and now she can see the bags under his eyes, the slump to his posture.

"I am," she says, gesturing for him to sit beside her. He hesitates only a moment before complying, not quite collapsing into the seat. "I'm afraid I don't recognize you, though."

"You wouldn't," he says, obviously trying for a smile, but it doesn't quite come out right. "It's...a little complicated, but…" here, he sets his bag on his lap and opens it, pulling out a familiar, worn notebook. "I wanted to give this back to you."

She stares at his outstretched hand, shaking ever so slightly, and then looks up to his face as she takes her son's life's work. "Minato seemed very tired when I spoke to him," she says carefully. The young man exhales, blinking rapidly and glancing away.

"Yeah, um, he…" he trails off, blinks a few more times, and finally runs his hands down his face. "He got really sick, in February. He—died, almost three weeks ago."

"Were you close?" she asks, and almost regrets the thoughtless question—but there's something in this man's face that reminds her of her son. A genuine kindness, a resignation to the realities of death—and she wishes to help him, if she can.

"Yeah," he chokes on a laugh, wiping at his eyes again before twisting his hands in his lap. "We—lived in the same dorm. I was his senior, and I should have been looking out for him, but…"

He shakes his head sharply, looking her again in the eyes. "I'm sorry, I've been rude," he says. "My name's Akihiko Sanada."

"Thank you for bringing this back, Akihiko," she says, tapping the book, and he glances down to it. "I'm sure, since you knew where to find me, you know how important it is."

Akihiko nods, leaning forward and staring at the children scaling the jungle gym. "He—Minato talked about Akinari sometimes," he says quietly. "I ran into the two of them, one morning, when I came to pray...I think they were good for each other."

"Akinari told me a lot about him," she nods, thinking back to his stories—the most animated she ever saw her son, in those last months, except when he was talking about his book. "Minato didn't pity him—he just saw him as a friend. You can't imagine how important that was."

Akihiko considers this, his brows furrowing as he stares forward. "He didn't let us help," he says eventually, his voice lower. "He didn't even tell us he was sick. He just...fell asleep on graduation day, and didn't ever wake up."

She can read the regret and self-hatred easily in his face, and she resists the strange urge to pull him into an embrace. "Minato reminded me of my son, when we met," she says carefully, unsure of how he will react. "It would have been just a few days before he passed—but he seemed at peace. I'm sure he didn't want you to hurt more than you had to."

"He's always been comfortable with death," Akihiko mutters, and does not elaborate. "We couldn't have _done_ anything, but he didn't have to go through it alone!"

She stays silent, because truly, no one could say why he did it but the boy himself. "I'm sorry," he says, at length, rubbing at his eyes again. "You didn't need to see that. I've just…"

"It's all right," she says quietly. "You don't need to apologize to me."

He looks over at her, then, considering. "You should know," he says. "The others found Akinari's book right by his bed. I think it...helped him, when he was alone."

She's become used to crying, in the last few months—and this time shouldn't be any different. But she finds that it _is,_ and her grip on the notebook tightens a bit as she thinks on this, as tears well in her eyes. Her son, helping his friend months after his death...sharing his own experience with a boy who kept his problems cooped up inside. Even if Minato was familiar with death, the looming presence of his own mortality must have been terrifying—especially when he was facing it alone.

"I'm glad," she says quietly, and Akihiko stares at her. "I'm sure Akinari would have loved to hear it, too."

He grimaces, and his lip wobbles a bit as he looks away. "Sorry," he says again, quieter. "He's not the first person I've lost—hell, I barely knew him a year. It's just…"

He trails off, looking embarrassed, and stands abruptly. "I should go," he says, bowing a little to her and trying again for a smile. "I'm glad I was able to give that back to you."

"Thank you," she says in return, and slips the notebook carefully into her purse. She considers the words he leaves hanging, the _thank you,_ the _I'm sorry_ he can't quite push past his lips. "Minato was a good person, and my son's closest friend—I'm sure he's already found peace. I hope you do as well."

He clenches his jaw, and blinks a few times, and manages a strangled "thank you" before hurrying across the playground and out of the shrine. She stands as well, clutches her purse tight, and feels the weight of two young lives on her shoulder all the way home.

When she broaches the subject of publishing Akinari's book, over the following weeks, she feels as if she's sharing Minato's story as well.

{

It's different here, but not altogether bad, and Akinari finds himself able to breathe easy for the first time in his life as he sees his mother, clutching his book tight and leaving his bench behind.

Minato is dead as well. He's known this since the moment it happened, but his soul has not crossed the river as so many others' have. Akinari wonders at this. He wonders if it has anything to do with the miracle he witnessed his friend perform at the end of January, and then wonders whether such heroism has earned him peace and honor among the gods.

If anyone deserves such a resting place, it is Minato—and Akinari could not be more proud of the friend who helped him to live when his life was so quickly running out.

}


	6. temperance : hanged man

_Special thanks to NinthFeather, who helped me figure out what the hell I was doing for both of these scenes. Without her I'd probably still be staring at an empty document!_

* * *

 **XIV: temperance**

He doesn't understand the kanji in the subject line of the email from Gekkoukan—only sees his friend's name, and wonders what great thing Minato has done that deserves recognition partway into spring break.

The email contains a picture of his friend's face, and a few words he can pick out— _temple_ , two dates and times several weeks past. (After all, he's had no reason to regularly check his school email from Japan _,_ no matter how excited he is at the prospect of going back someday.) Eventually he has to run the rest of it through a translator, and at first, he's sure it must be glitching.

Minato, his very best friend, can't possibly be having a _funeral_ —

He tries another few translators, just to be sure, but they all give him the same answer: Minato died at the beginning of March, and his funeral was held a week later. It's the start of April already and even had he known, there was no way he would've been able to make it back to Japan with his uncle's tight budget, but—but—

His uncle finds him curled up and sobbing in the living room an hour later when he returns from work, and he rushes forward, hands outstretched, asking what's wrong. The two of them have never been close—not like Andre was with his aunt—but over the last few months, their relationship has mended, out of necessity if nothing else. Andre, determined to do well in school and earn enough money to return to the country of his dreams—his uncle, desperate to make the ghost of his wife happy.

"Andre, what's wrong?" he asks urgently, eventually reaching for his shoulder and leaving a comforting weight there. He wants to answer, but his voice won't materialize, and he only grips his phone tighter as he cries. Minato, he's sure, would be disappointed in him for this—he's always been very stoic, and Andre only rarely saw him show any emotion at all. He'd call him ridiculous for crying so hard about this, but he can't help it when his friend is—

Eventually his uncle gets him to uncurl, convinces him to hand over his phone. But, of course, he doesn't understand any Japanese—and eventually Andre has to tell him, the words like torture in his mouth, what has happened.

"Your friend who...helped you make the kimono?" he asks eventually, unsure, and Andre nods. He remembers how his uncle had once, scornfully, told him that _All Asian names sound the same to me._ "What happened?"

"I don't know!" he wails, and buries his face again into a pillow, and his uncle hovers. His first instinct is clearly to rebuke him, but something stops the sting behind his words as he waits for Andre to calm down.

"Do you...want to go back to visit?" he asks eventually, and Andre stiffens, trying to listen past the ringing in his ears as his uncle continues, "I could pay for a short trip, but I don't think I could come with you, with work the way it is…"

"He's already been cremated," Andre mumbles into his pillow, and does not have the courage to look up. He realizes that he _very much_ wants to travel back to Japan, but asking his uncle to pay for something like this doesn't sit well. He's already taken so much charity from him, and his aunt, and the rest of their community—and at this point, it'd only be a waste of money.

"He was important to you," his uncle says, a little stiff, but Andre thinks it's more discomfort with the situation rather than the idea of him returning to Japan. "What kind of family would I be if I didn't let you pay your respects?"

Andre hugs his pillow a little closer, and finds that he can't contradict him.

.

It's almost two weeks before his uncle comes up with the money to send him to Japan, and Andre feels guiltier by the day. Their neighbors and friends look at him with pity, and he's sure his uncle asked them again for help.

Someday, when his art allows, he swears that he will pay them all back for this, and then some.

He sends a blind email to Mitsuru Kirijo—one of the first people he met in Japan, the student council president, the only person at Gekkoukan who spoke French. She had met him at the airport when he first arrived, showed him to the boys' dorm—helped him with kanji he didn't understand or idioms he'd never learned.

He had a couple of conversations with her in French, at the beginning of the year, when he was particularly homesick and unable to keep up with Japanese. But as the year went on, he saw her less and less. She had always looked extremely busy, always exhausted—and after her father died suddenly, Andre knew she wouldn't have any time to talk to someone like him.

But he remembers the blood-red armband she wore, sometimes, and the matching one on Minato's sleeve—and knows that he can ask no one else.

 _What happened to Minato?_ he sends her, in French, because his Japanese has slipped in the last few months. He's not sure his mind is in any place to type out a foreign language right now, anyway. _I'm flying back to Iwatodai in two weeks to visit. Could you please tell me where his grave is?_

It's a couple of days before Mitsuru responds, and he's resorted to scouring news sites from Iwatodai, trying to read the obituaries, to see a familiar face. When his email client chimes, though, he pulls it up quickly, hoping it's his very first Japanese friend.

 _Your new plane tickets are attached,_ she opens with, and Andre blinks at it in confusion. _I'll have someone pick you up from the airport and drive you wherever you need to go._

She leaves her personal cell phone number, saying to call if he has any questions or problems, and Andre isn't quite sure how to process this even as his uncle exclaims in surprise from the other room. "Your plane ticket was just refunded," he yells, and Andre stares blankly at Mitsuru's email. "There's a note here—"

Andre blinks, trying to process, before he stands up. "One of my friends from Japan," he says, stepping around the corner to see his uncle. "She's...very rich. I asked her where Minato is buried, and…"

He trails off, but the meaning is clear anyway. His uncle blinks before his face contorts, and he mutters something about having to make some phone calls before walking away.

Andre returns to his room, determined, suddenly, to make this trip to Japan worthwhile. He looks between the pile of cloth in one corner, the sewing machine taking up half of his desk, and the plane tickets that say he's leaving for a week-long stay in Iwatodai in two weeks.

His friends—both of them—deserve only the best, and even if he doesn't think he'll be able to do either of them justice, he knows he needs to try.

A stately evening dress in the Western style for Mitsuru—something she'd be able to wear to parties or fancy dinners the likes of which he can only imagine. And, he thinks, a knitted scarf for Minato—dark blue, to match his hair and headphones—long and cozy, like Ryoji's was, for the few weeks that he was at Gekkoukan. (Andre didn't know him well, and he never mustered the nerve to ask Minato what happened, but he saw his friend's devastation after Ryoji left. He knows they must have been good friends.)

It took him nearly a month to finish his kimono, but he's improved since then—and he needs to do this before he leaves. He _needs_ to, and so he will; he'll return to Japan, even if it's only for a short trip to visit Minato's grave. He'll bring a present for his first friend in that country, and his best friend as well—even if the latter won't ever be able to appreciate it.

He promised Minato he'd do this, standing on his own two feet—and even if he wishes it were under any other circumstances, he's determined to make his friend proud.

* * *

 **XII: hanged man**

Maiko returns to Iwatodai for the second time in a month, a few days before the new school year starts. She thinks she'd never come here again if it meant she didn't have to deal with all of this.

She went to Minato's funeral last time, the third one she's ever been to after her grandpa and Akinari. This time, she's here to see her dad, and visit Minato's grave, and maybe see if she can find the friends he always mentioned. She knows he doesn't have any parents, because he had said so, a few months ago, when they were playing together. She asked whether his parents fought as much as hers did, and…

She swallows, and tries not to cry as she sits in the backseat of Mom's car. Her parents have been more patient with her than they ever have, and in any other circumstances she'd be happy for it, but...Minato is dead, now. He's dead even though he wasn't sick when she moved away, and her parents said that it was very sudden and that he's never coming back, and—she pretends she understands but she doesn't, really.

Her grandfather was very old, and Akinari was very sick, and she knows that those are the kinds of people who die. But Minato was healthy, every time she saw him—he ran super fast, and always kept up with her on the jungle gym, and she doesn't understand how he died so suddenly when—

She wipes furiously at her eyes, and Mom sends her a worried look through the rearview mirror. She's done a lot of crying the past few weeks, ever since Dad called with the news. She knows she's supposed to be a big girl, but—

She had two best friends in Iwatodai, both teenagers, both whom she met at the shrine. Her school friends were fun to play with, but Akinari had the best smiles and the best stories, and Minato always brought her the best snacks, and played with her for hours and hours even when he said he had a big test coming up, or that he had something to do later that night. They both spent time with her when she didn't want to go home, and she was always secure in the knowledge that they would be there, waiting for her at the shrine.

Then Akinari died because his sickness got worse. Now, Minato is dead, too. She wonders with a stifled sob if there's something wrong with her, whether she's causing people around her to die, whether her parents will come next because—

"Honey," Mom says, and turns around in her seat to look at her properly once they stop at a red light. "We're almost there, okay? You shouldn't be crying when you see your dad, right?"

"Yeah," she mumbles, because it's true, but her dad said he ran into Minato a few days before he died. He said her friend looked very tired and sick, but that he asked about Maiko and whether she was doing okay at her new school. He wanted to know her new address, so that he could send her a letter. She waited for days after the funeral, running to check the mail every time it arrived, but he never wrote her one. At first she was selfish, and thought he was too lazy or forgot. But then she remembered that he was sick, and he—

Her dad saw Minato at the beginning of March but Maiko didn't, and she's angry and sad and a lot of other things she can't figure out as they pull into her old house's driveway. She sits in the car, not wanting to get out or say hello, and her mom hesitates before heaving a big sigh, getting out of the car herself and going up to ring the doorbell.

It's wrong, that her family doesn't live in the same house anymore. She wants her mom and dad to be together again, and she wants Akinari and Minato to be her friends and meet her at the shrine, and—

She wipes at her eyes again, and tries not to sob into the quiet car because she knows if she does, she won't be able to stop. After a little while, both her parents come back out to the car, standing far away from each other the way Maiko hates, and her dad opens the car door to give her a hug.

"Hey," he says quietly, and Maiko feels her lip wobbling. "Is there anything you want to do this weekend?"

She wants to see her friends—and she knows it's impossible but she almost says it anyway, just to see what Dad will do. "Can we go to the shrine?" she asks instead, because she really likes the slide, and she has lots of memories of her friends there. There used to be a doggy, too—she liked to pet him and give him leftovers from her lunch, when he was still there. He disappeared in the summer, though. She wonders for the first time whether he died, too.

"Sure," her dad says immediately with a little smile. "How about we go there after we visit Minato?"

She hates the way he says it, like he's still a living person she can talk to. But she wants to visit his grave, so she nods. Her dad's smile gets bigger, and he climbs into the backseat with her as Mom turns the car on again.

Her dad looks up some stuff on his phone, and leads them through the cramped cemetery when they arrive. She hates it here—everything feels too close, and the air around her feels heavy on her shoulders, and sometimes it's hard to breathe. She holds tight to Mom's hand, and tries not to look at all the stones around her.

Dad finally stops in front of a shiny black headstone that says _Minato Arisato,_ and Maiko finally finds that she can't stop her sobs from surfacing.

It's a pretty rock, but that's all it is; her parents explained to her that people who die are burned into ash after their funeral, because the cemeteries are too crowded to bury them all underground. Her friend got burned up because he got sick, and because the world didn't have space for him even though he's so important to her, and—

There's a pretty blue scarf wrapped securely around the base of the stone, and a few bouquets of flowers and packages of food resting against it. When she looks to the one right next to it—older, with three names on it—she realizes that these must be his parents. They have the same family name, after all, and he had said that his parents were—

But there's a third name there, too, with the same birth date as her friend and the same death date as his parents. She does not know what this means. _Hamuko Arisato,_ the name reads, but Minato never mentioned a sister, and she does not know who this person is or why she is buried here.

She doesn't think long on it, though, and soon returns her attention to Minato. Her parents told her that you're supposed to bring food to honor a dead person, but she didn't have time to go to the takoyaki stand, or even get a Mad Bull from a vending machine, and the tears start fresh as she wonders whether Minato would be disappointed in her.

It's silly—he would never tell her off for something so small. She can imagine his smiling face in her mind, telling her not to worry about it, that he doesn't care about traditions like that anyway.

She wants to see him again—more than anything, she wants to give her friend a hug and tell him that he's her best friend in the whole world, and even if he doesn't want to get married when she grows up, maybe he can be her brother instead. She finds herself sobbing these things to his headstone, even though he's dead, even though he got burned up after his funeral. She feels her mother's soft hand petting her hair, but she doesn't give her any attention.

Eventually her parents steer her away from the cemetery, promising to buy her some takoyaki before going to the shrine. She eats the food—the stand owner even recognizes her, and asks her what's wrong when she sees her red eyes—but for the first time, she doesn't appreciate it.

Minato isn't here to eat it with her, and she's not sure that she'll be able to love takoyaki ever again.

* * *

 _I had to throw a reference to Hamuko in there sorry not sorry, the Twin AU gives me life  
_

 _For anyone curious, the scenes I didn't put in for time/length's sake: Bebe traveling to Japan, visiting his grave, meeting Mitsuru for dinner and giving her the dress. Maiko going to visit the shrine and seeing Koromaru and Ken (I headcanon they were classmates), and talking to him about Minato._


	7. chariot : strength

**VII: chariot**

Kaz saw him often, in December, running lap after lap after lap in the dying sunlight behind the school.

He went to practice every day, even though his knee was still recovering from surgery and he couldn't run himself. He hardly ever saw Minato there, though, and it hurt that his friend who had been the star of the team for months would suddenly quit just like _that._ He always left school right after the last class, though, and Kaz never had the opportunity to talk to him about it.

The first day he stayed extra late to help clean up was when he realized Minato hadn't given up running after all.

"Yo," he called across the field, and Minato's head snapped up, surprise clear on his face even at this distance. "What're you doing here? Where were you at practice?"

Minato jogged over as Kaz hobbled his own way closer. "Mitsuru needed some help," he said, once they were within speaking distance, and didn't elaborate. "Sorry I haven't been coming lately, it's been…"

He trailed off, waved a hand, and apparently decided that sentence wasn't worth finishing. "What are you doing here?" he asked instead, peering up at Kaz, and he shrugged.

"Decided to hang out a few minutes after clean up," he said, and settled back against the bleachers. "Sunset promises to be nice today."

Minato blinked, and looked to the west. He stared at the sky a few seconds longer than Kaz was expecting, but eventually turned back to him with a smile. "Yeah," he said, his tone a little distant. Kaz frowned.

"Hey, is everything all right?" he asked, and Minato blinked at him.

"It's fine," he said, in a way that didn't convince his friend at all. "I just have a lot to think about."

.

He saw Minato most evenings he stayed late, as December went on—enough that he seriously started to worry for him. Even as it got colder—even on the days practice was cancelled for the snow—Kaz stuck around, and saw him climb the fence a couple of hours after school got out, and run miles and miles until it was too dark to see.

"Can I ask you something?" Minato asked him, once, when Kaz convinced him to stop running for the day, and to grab some Wuck instead for old times' sake. "When do you think it's okay for someone to give up?"

"On what?" Kaz asked, a little warily, but Minato only shrugged. "Well, you're the one that told me to stop running when it was gonna kill my knee, right? So I'd say that if something's hurting you, you need to drop it."

Minato was quiet for a long time, at that. "What if giving up would make me feel better, but would hurt a lot of other people?" he said eventually, staring at his untouched burger, and Kaz frowned at him, trying to figure him out.

"What's going on, dude?" he asked eventually, putting his own meal down to lean forward. "Are you in some kind of trouble?"

Minato shook his head, clenched his teeth, and never answered the question.

.

He saw Minato with his dormmates at the shrine, on New Years' Day, and it looked like a huge weight had been lifted from his friend's shoulders.

He looked exhausted still, with his hair unkempt and his face pale, but his eyes were bright, and he even _smiled_ when a dog with little paper wings on its back came up for ear scritches. "Hey," Kaz said loudly, making his way over on his crutches, and Minato looked up.

"Hey," he said, and his smile didn't dim even as the dog sat on his feet, looking up at Kaz in excitement. "How's your knee?"

"Better every day," he said, grinning back and reaching down to pat the dog's head. "You haven't been running laps over break, too, have you? Even coach called off practice for another week."

"No," Minato said, and Kaz saw something different forming in his eyes. Looking back on it now, he thinks it was determination. "I've made my choice—I'm not running away."

"So long as it doesn't get you killed," Kaz said, only half serious, and Minato's grin faltered for second.

"It's the only choice I had," he said, and left to return to his friends before Kaz could respond.

.

Kaz ran into him by chance at the shrine, a few days before the end of the month, and saw that same pensive, worried look on his face. He was alone, and Kaz hesitated before approaching him. He wasn't praying or doing anything that shouldn't be interrupted; he was only sitting on a bench by the playground, staring at nothing as he thought.

"Hey," he said, after standing in front of Minato for several seconds. He jumped, looking up—stared blankly for several seconds before shifting over on the bench. Kaz took the offer.

"What's up, man?" he asked, when Minato didn't seem willing to say anything to him.

He sighed heavily, ran both hands over his face, and turned to look properly at Kaz. "I'm scared," he said, and Kaz hesitated.

"Is it all this cult bullshit?" he asked with a frown. "It's kinda freaking me out, too, but—it seems like all your dormmates have good heads on their shoulders, so you shouldn't worry too—"

"What if I told you the cult was right?" he cut him off, and Kaz stopped abruptly. "The whole _Nyx saving everyone_ is bullshit, but...the world is going to end next week."

Kaz opened his mouth, found he didn't have anything to say, and swallowed thickly instead. "What do you mean?" he asked, his voice a little high, and Minato shook his head.

"We've been doing everything we can to stop it, but it's probably not going to be enough," he said quietly. "Humanity's given up on life so much that it's brought Death to all of us."

Kaz would have thought he was joking, if he knew Minato less well, if he didn't see the unbridled fear on his face. "I'm supposed to be in charge," he continued quietly, "but we've decided to fight Death itself. How the hell are we supposed to beat _that?"_

He didn't look at Kaz as he said these things; he was nearly whispering, by the end, and Kaz thinks he was probably trying to talk himself around to whatever it was he had to do. "How can I help?" he asked eventually, and Minato shook his head.

"You can't," he said, "except to try and live, as much as you can."

.

After the night of January 31st, Kaz doesn't remember what happened atop that strange tower when the whole world turned sickly and green. He does remember his unwavering trust in his friend to do whatever it takes to save the world.

.

(He wonders if it was worth it when, a month later, his friend winds up dead.)

.

The spring track tournament is in late March, and every member of the team's rattled by what happened.

The whole school's heard by now; those that were unfortunate enough to miss the email and funeral have long since been informed by their friends. Kaz remembers Minato's face, the day before graduation—sick as all hell, exhausted, but so _relieved_ —and remembers telling him to get some rest, that they'll catch up later, that he should come to watch the tournament over break, even if he was still too sick to participate.

Minato's smile had come out more as a grimace, and he had nodded, hesitating before turning and walking away toward the train station.

Kaz remembers his half-joke to make sure his decision didn't get himself killed, and wishes he hadn't been so flippant about something that was clearly life-altering and important. He remembers Minato's terror, remembers the way he talked about the end of the world, and knows he will never get answers for what, exactly, his friend meant. He knows the cult had spouted about the end of times, and he knows he felt exhausted on the morning of February 1, but he has no memory of the night before. He knows the world has not ended, and that everyone around him seems to have newfound energy and excitement for everything going on in their lives.

He wonders whether this has anything to do with Minato's exhaustion and illness and death, and while it seems unrealistic and like something out of a manga, he thinks it matches a little too well with the Minato he knew in January. He said _I didn't have any other choice;_ he said _everything we can do won't be enough._

If anyone on this Earth can perform a miracle, Kaz knows it is probably Minato—but he's never known miracles to have such a high price.

Yuko shows up early to the tournament, just as he does, and her eyes are red and watery as she clutches at her clipboard. "We'll get through this," he says to her, his voice low and barely audible above the chaos around them. She swallows, swipes at her eyes once, and nods sharply.

Kaz doesn't run as well as he could have (as well as Minato _would_ have), but he just barely misses medaling in the tournament for his mile time. It's not bad, he supposes, after walking on a bum leg for almost a year—but as he looks at the top three guys in Minato's events, he knows his friend would have easily won gold in all of them.

Hayase isn't here anymore—rumor has it he had to move to help his sick mother—but several guys from other schools come up to the Gekkoukan team, asking where "that blue-haired guy" is that performed so well in the last few tournaments. Most of the others stammer out vague answer with pale faces and crossed arms, but when Kaz gets asked by some kid from Tokyo who recognized their uniforms, he knows he needs to give a better answer than that.

"He got sick last month, and ended up dying," he said, his voice low, and the guy's face drains as he stammers out an apology and some condolences. "We're just trying to do him proud—he's the reason we're able to be here at all."

He means it, in part, that Minato encouraged them to do their best at every turn, inspired them to run harder and faster, and always had a spare hour or two to listen to people's troubles. But as he thinks on their last few interactions before his death, he starts to wonder whether he doesn't mean it in a more literal sense, too.

The end of the world, and a terrifying death cult, and a teenager who says he's the only one who can stop it all—it's way more than Kaz can understand. But he does understand that Minato was kind and good and brave, and he probably single-handedly saved Kaz's track career and maybe even his life. And, after all, saving one life isn't so different from saving billions, right? Maybe Minato was just as incredible to the gods and the rest of the world as he was to Kaz, and that's a little gratifying and a little scary, and makes a little too much sense.

Gekkoukan doesn't medal in the tournament overall, and doesn't advance to nationals, but Kaz finds himself smiling all the same, and wiping away tears as he stands with Yuko and the rest of the team. He hopes that, wherever he is, Minato is proud of them—because Kaz thinks he's more proud of his friend than he's ever been of anyone in his life.

* * *

 **XI: strength**

She spends most of her first day of senior year in something of a daze.

It's stupid—she knows she needs to snap herself out of it, prepare for her final year managing the track team, throw herself into her studies like she promised him she would. She _promised_ and she knows that she should, but it's so hard, when she remembers again and again that Minato won't be waiting for her at the end. He won't be cheering her on, laughing off her blunt way of speaking and her tendency to put her foot in her mouth.

She had made a fool of herself, on that last day of school, her face burning red as she asked him to stand at her side as she got her life figured out. But he had only smiled gently, his hands deep in his pockets and his eyes tired, and promised to do everything he could.

Kaz had called her a few days later with the news, tears and disbelief choking his words—and she had screamed at him that it couldn't be true. But it was in her email inbox, too, and they have no answers for what could have possibly happened to quiet, kind Minato. She considered cornering his friends—the ones he lived with, the ones with the matching armbands that never got explained to the rest of the student body—but when she saw them at the wake, they looked even more miserable than she was. Takeba was crying into—of all people's—Iori's shoulder, and even Kirijo's shoulders trembled as she tried to hold herself together.

Yuko is brash, and doesn't think before she speaks, and knows she deserves to know what happened to her friend—but even she knows better than to press them.

She, Rio, Kaz, and Kenji picked the same homeroom deliberately, and she sits close to her friends as the classroom slowly fills up. By some awful twist of fate, Takeba, Yamagishi, Iori, and Aigis are in here too, sitting at the very back of class, and Yuko feels almost a sense of vertigo as she stares at them. They all look well, if a little lost, and Yamagishi and Takeba are huddled together as if for comfort as Iori chats at them.

Rio pokes Yuko in the shoulder; she never knew MInato well, since she was always so tied up with the tennis team, but she saw the two of them often enough at the track with all those kids. "You're staring," she says quietly, and Yuko waves a hand. She turns back around to see Rio looking at her in worry. "You know, if it's really bothering you that much, you could just ask them," she continues. "They know you were friends—of course you want to know what happened to him."

Yuko grimaces and shakes her head. "It's not like I know any of them, though," she says. "It'd be kinda weird."

"I don't think so," Rio mutters, glancing back to the four of them, but doesn't argue further.

She mulls on this, though, throughout the day—tunes out Kenji's rambling with practiced ease, and tries to filter her own thoughts with less success—and by the end of the day she's convinced herself to approach them. She knows Takeba isn't a big fan of hers, and they've always run in different circles; she's never spoken even a word to Aigis. But, if nothing else, Iori's hit on her a couple of times, and Yamagishi was in her class last year. Even before she made friends with Minato and the others, even when she was being bullied by those other girls, she had always been so kind. Yuko thinks that at least she will be civil to her during this conversation.

Kaz and Rio both send her encouraging smiles as she stands after the final bell, resolved to ask them. Her feet carry her to the back of the room, and all four of them look up at her in surprise as she stops by their desks. "Oh, Yuko!" Yamagishi says, and a little smile grows on her face. "I didn't realize you were in this class, too!"

"Yeah," she says, a little distracted, and notes the missing armbands on each of their uniforms. She wonders if that special club has disbanded, now that Kirijo's graduated. "Um, I don't want to be rude, but I want to know what happened to Minato. I mean, I saw him the day before graduation and he was fine, but then…"

She trails off, doesn't want to blabber on and say something she'll regret. Takeba, if memory serves, had a thing for him as well. Yuko isn't sure whether Minato was gay, or ace, or what, but she never saw him show even an ounce of romantic interest in anyone at school. She tried very hard not to take it personally, and only occasionally failed. "Oh," Yamagishi says, a little quieter, and looks down at her books.

"Figured it wouldn't take long," Iori says, an uncharacteristically serious look on his face as he claps Yamagishi on the shoulder. "Everyone's curious, you know? No hard feelings," he says quickly to Yuko, "it's just, well, y'know…" he trails off, and swallows before continuing, "it was kinda sudden for us, too."

"Do you _know_ what happened?" she asks, and thinks maybe she should be more careful in her wording, but it's too late to take it back now. Takeba hasn't slapped her, or anything, so she figures she's doing okay.

"Um, sorta," Iori stutters, unsure, but doesn't continue immediately. Yuko knows they were best friends—and she's not sure how she would answer anyone who asked her such a question about Kaz—but her nerves are wearing a bit thin, and she clenches her teeth as she waits for an answer.

"He contracted an illness at the end of January," Aigis says suddenly, and Yuko blinks, turning to look at her. She had assumed Aigis was foreign based on her hair color and face structure, but her accent isn't quite like anything she's ever heard before. "He stayed alive as long as he could, for his friends, but eventually he couldn't hold it back anymore."

"What kind of illness?" she presses, and tries to think of what happened at the end of January. Minato had looked like hell for a few months prior, ragged and exhausted and terrified half the time, though he always brushed it off when she asked. He spent a lot of time with Aigis—she saw them leaving school together—and Yuko had wondered but had never been able to ask.

"The doctors weren't sure," Iori says, something of an apologetic grimace on his face, a desperate plea to _drop the subject_ hanging in the air between them. Yuko looks from a teary-eyed Yamagishi, to a stone-faced Takeba, and decides that they probably have no reason to withhold information from her. Sometimes people just drop dead—some people get sick for no reason at all—and though she's been very lucky, very sheltered in her life, she supposes death catches up to everyone, eventually.

"Okay," she says into the silence, and Iori's shoulders slump in relief. "Um, thanks for telling me. I've been wondering all through break, and it's been bothering me, because he really meant a lot to me and it was so sudden, and—"

She realizes what her mouth is doing and cuts herself off sharply, feels her cheeks burning pink as she looks away. "Um, I'll go now," she says, but Yamagishi's quiet tone stops her.

"Wait." When Yuko turns back around, she's smiling a little bit despite her bright eyes. "We—we went through his things, last month, and found a few gifts from other people. I just remembered, you guys were coaching some younger students after school, right? Minato mentioned it a couple of times."

"Yeah, we were," she says, blinking, and wonders whether Minato actually kept that letter she gave to him. He had told her he liked kids, that he was a sentimental kind of guy, that their friendship meant a lot to him. But as Yamagishi digs through her schoolbag and pulls out a well-worn envelope, she starts to realize exactly _how much_ Minato cared.

"I thought you might want it back," she says, and Yuko feels her hands trembling as she accepts the letter. The paper has been folded and unfolded often, and the corners of the envelope are worn, but it's clearly been cared for. Yuko stares at it, and wonders what kind of sentimental _idiot_ would hold onto something like this.

"Thank you," she mutters, her voice choked, and Takeba and Aigis both frown at her as she turns sharply on her heel, walking back to Rio and Kaz.

"What's wrong?" Rio asks, alarmed, as Yuko pulls her backpack from under her desk, placing the envelope inside carefully before swinging it onto her shoulder. "Did they tell you—?"

"He just got sick," she says quietly, and clutches at the straps of her bag to keep her hands from shaking. "He kept the letter those kids wrote us."

Rio blinks at her, a crease forming in her brow. "Why?" she asks eventually, and Yuko laughs as she sobs, wiping furiously at her eyes, not caring what it's probably doing to her makeup.

"Because he's an idiot," she says, and Kaz makes a noise beside her, but Yuko doesn't let them say anything else. She leaves the classroom quickly, blinking to try and keep her tears at bay, making her way toward the field. Practice won't start for another couple of weeks, but she needs to think, and clear her head. After all, the track was like a second home to her last year, between practice and those kids and _Minato._

He was such a large part of her junior year, and now that he's not here, she isn't sure what to do with herself. Even if her daydreams of dark-skinned, blue-haired children will never come to be (and even if they never would have before), Minato was important to her in ways she can't express. Even if he isn't here anymore, he told her to make him proud; he told her to go into sports medicine despite her teachers' misgivings. He told her she could be anything she set her mind to, if she only worked hard enough.

She sobs into the sunlight, and settles down onto the edge of the track, and pulls that envelope out of her backpack again. She'll make him proud; she'll blow her teachers away, this year, with her grades and motivation and college entrance exams. She'll do everything she promised him she would, and no amount of self-doubt will hold her back.

When she sees him again, she'll meet him with tears and a slap across the face and a crushing hug, and show him everything he ever taught her about being a better person. She'll make him proud, and meet him whenever the gods will it with her head held high.


	8. star : moon

**XVII: star**

It's been a week since Mamoru learned of what happened, and over a month since the funeral.

One of his closest friends from the track team called him up in late March after the regional tournament, his voice shaky, and relayed the rumor that Gekkoukan's star runner was dead. Mamoru had hoped, first, that it was only a rumor—and then, selfishly, had hoped that they meant the captain with the bum knee, rather than Minato. But when he did some checking online for obituaries and news reports, he found out very quickly that it was indeed his friend—Gekkoukan's website had a short memorial for him on the front page, and Iwatodai's local paper had an obituary with his picture, and—when he reached out to Gekkoukan's administration—he even got the cemetery and plot where his friend is interred.

His boss has offered him paid leave—his co-workers have offered to pool their vacation time to give him a longer break. But he hasn't acted on any of it yet. He feels numb and confused—he only knew Minato for a few months, after all, and no one else in his life so much as met him. The news hurts far more than he's expecting, and the sick pit in his stomach follows him for days after he got that phone call.

His mom calls almost daily, and she can tell a difference in his tone—but he can't bring herself to tell her like this. It's not that she ever met him, but she was so proud when he said he had made a friend outside of the track team (even if he ran for another school), and he doesn't want to give her more stress than he already has.

He misses her, and he misses his siblings, but he isn't sure he's able to face them, right now, with the pain so fresh. So he keeps his head down at work, and assures everyone who asks that he's perfectly fine, and only allows himself to crash when he's in the safety of his dorm room.

.

He takes to running laps, even outside of their regular group practices. Minato encouraged him to keep it up after he moved, and if he ever wants to go to college, he'll need that track scholarship to pay his way. He runs after practice—after dinner—in the early mornings before his shift starts. Five laps around the factory, about four miles, three times a day. It eats up most of his free time, and he doesn't quite register that he's doing this on purpose even as he collapses, exhausted, every night into his bed.

His supervisor catches him by the elbow a week into this new regime, his face serious, to say that he's sending him back to Iwatodai for the week.

Mamoru panics. He needs the money—his _family_ needs the money—and such a failure on his part is absolutely unacceptable. He tries to explain this, light-headed and terrified, but he's cut off—"Don't worry about the money, you'll get your paycheck this week, same as always. I'm giving you a break because you _need it._ "

It seems like only a few minutes later that he's standing in front of his mother's apartment door, a duffel bag thrown over his shoulders, and it's then that he thinks his boss is probably right.

His younger siblings shriek and laugh when he opens the door, and his mother looks shocked and worried but pleased to see him. Her hair's gone mostly gray, in the last six months, and all of his siblings have gotten a few inches taller. He's missed so much, even with the phone calls they share practically every day, and he allows his sisters to pull him further into the apartment as his mother stands from the couch.

"What are you doing home?" she asks, and clearly doesn't want to ask whether he's been fired or laid off in front of the others. Mamoru can read the concern clearly in her face nonetheless, and he can't keep this from her anymore.

"My supervisor made me come home for the week," he says, dropping his duffel and embracing his mom in a hug. "It's—my friend from Gekkoukan, Minato. He…"

He trails off for a moment, burying his face in her shoulder to wipe the tears away. "He died, in March, and I just heard about it, and…"

His mother's grip around his shoulders grows a bit tighter, and she doesn't say anything for a moment. "Let me know what you need," she says eventually, and rubs at his neck in the way that's always calmed him down. "Your bed's still where you left it—and there's plenty of food to go around."

"Thanks," he says quietly, and wonders, suddenly, how much his mother will have to re-budget, to feed him for a week. He wonders whether those restaurants that always gave him free meals will still recognize his face, six months after he left. "You're the best, Mom."

.

The takoyaki stand is the same as always, as are Wuck, the beef bowl shop, and Hagakure—and Mamoru pretends he doesn't feel guilty about this as he rotates between the four of them for lunch, the rest of the week. His mother demands he eat dinner with the rest of them, and it's true—there's a lot more food on the table than there used to be. He's glad that the paychecks he's sending home are doing his mother some good, and smiles warmly when his brother—entering high school next year—eagerly reaches for seconds.

It's great to be back in town, and he calls up some of his old friends to spend an afternoon together halfway through the week—catches up with the old couple at the store where he always used to buy books for his mom and siblings—avoids the cemetery as long as he reasonably can.

Eventually, though, he pays a visit, and it's not as tough as he thinks it will be. Maybe it's because he forced himself to grow up so quickly, after his father's passing—maybe he knows that Minato would be disappointed in him for lingering. After all, he's the one who always pressured Mamoru to move forward, as hard as he could, as fast as he could, and do good work for others along the way.

Minato wouldn't want him moping around, and neither would his father. He wonders what happened to his dad's car keys, and thinks for the first time that it doesn't really matter.

Their friendship was spontaneous and odd—Mamoru freely admits it. They were track rivals, after all, and Minato had been so frustrated when he got silver in that first meet instead of gold. Mamoru had seen someone, at first, accustomed to winning, and had only thought of knocking the rich kid down a peg.

Then Minato approached him at the strip mall, and asked whether he wanted to grab dinner together. He learned that Minato lost his entire family to the tragedy ten years ago; he learned that Minato was only a student at Gekkoukan because of the Kirijo Group's fleeting generosity. He learned that even though his friend excelled at track, he had taken Kendo lessons for most of his childhood, and was pretty handy with a sword.

He learned that his own black and white view of the world—winners and losers, those who try and those who don't—was stark and incorrect because Minato gave him a gentle _push,_ and told him about life beyond the competition. But just when he had started to figure it out, his mom collapsed, and cut her hours, and all of a sudden there wasn't enough food on the table for six children and a sick widow.

Mamoru had made the only choice he could, and left Minato behind. He had been sad, but he hadn't regretted it. Minato smiled and agreed when Mamoru promised to race him the next time he came back, and that had been that, for two teenagers mostly unaccustomed to close friendships and sharing feelings. He didn't give it much thought, except when running with his coworkers, but now…

Well, Minato isn't here anymore, and Mamoru supposes he'll do what he's always done—move forward, and pick up the slack his friend left behind, and continue living for the people still here in his life.

The cemetery isn't quite so heavy, anymore; the restaurants they shared so many meals at are comforting, rather than full of painful memories. Mamoru isn't sure how Minato wormed his way into his heart so quickly, when they scarcely hung out for four months. But as he stares at his phone lock screen—a selfie they took after the last tournament, holding silver and gold, a rare grin on Minato's face—he figures maybe his friend just had something about him that made him special.

* * *

 **XVIII: moon**

His first thought, when he hears that Minato is dead of exhaustion, is that he was a casualty of Nyx's aborted coming.

He tells everyone—and himself—that he's moved on from the doomsday cult, that Takaya was full of shit, that really, he was stupid and awful and took advantage of people for some semblance of power and control over his life.

He tells himself that since The Fall didn't happen, Nyx must not have been real—but then he hears that Minato died at the beginning of March, after a month of sudden illness, and hadn't the Fall been destined for the end of January?

Hadn't he been willing to accept the possibility of losses outside the cult, as long as he and the others were brought to transcendence under Nyx herself?

(He had tried to convince Minato to join—had even, once, offered to try and halve the entrance fee—but his friend's face had twisted in revulsion every time he brought it up. He had been too blind to see the way talking of Nyx brought lines to Minato's face and a near-desperate attempt to change the subject.)

(He had been blind, and brainwashed, and stubborn, and these are nothing more than excuses when his friend is dead, and the cult he has denounced may not be so defunct after all.)

He needs to know the truth—whether Minato truly died of Apathy Syndrome brought on by the Fall, even when the vast majority of those who suffered from it have recovered, even when he attended school right up until the end of the year. He doesn't think Minato had Apathy Syndrome, but the coincidences are too great—and he can't think of anything else that could suddenly kill his friend when he had always seemed so fit and full of energy, in the past.

He broods on this for days. His return trip should have been full of fanfare, with interviews and book offers about the food he's experienced on his trip abroad—but he finds himself, for the first time in his life, completely without appetite. Instead, he pores over old flyers and manifestos, trying to find something proving his theory wrong.

There isn't anything. There isn't much in these at all, truth be told, and now he is ashamed to admit that he was pulled in so easily—and he finds himself at a loss as to where to go from here.

He tries to think of who Minato hung out with, whether he had any family—but he only mentioned living in the dorms, and his friends who lived there with him. He berates himself, now, that he didn't ever let Minato talk about himself—it was always about Nozomi, and his food, and his _religious experience._

He likes to think he grew as a person, since spilling his life story to his only friend. His insecurities, his brother, and every negative aspect of his life was laid bare—but Minato didn't judge him. He asked why he compared himself to his twin, even after he was gone; he asked whether he wanted to change his life to better suit his own personal growth. He was the first to tell Nozomi that this was even an option—and though he never got the chance to tell Minato as much, his world tour over the last three months was his first step toward that goal.

It feels wrong, that the past he's worked very hard to put behind him is brought back to the front of his mind so forcefully. He grimaces, fiddles with his phone, and tries to think of a person to talk to about his suspicions.

Takaya and Jin disappeared off the face of the planet, after the promised date of the Fall; the cult disbanded quickly after that, and he never really knew anyone personally in their ranks, anyway. He thinks Minato was part of some club headed by Kirijo, but he was never in the same class as her—and even if he was, he's sure she would never deign to talk to someone like him. He scrolls aimlessly through his contacts, staring and hoping for some kind of miracle, before his gaze lands on _Akihiko Sanada._

They had been assigned partners on a group project last year—and Nozomi blinks, considering this. They were on civil terms, at least, though Sanada often bailed on their meetings to attend boxing practice and his private club ("Mitsuru told me to be there, you know how she is"). Nozomi had been frustrated, but after all, he had ditched just as often to get food when he didn't feel like working.

Most importantly, he's fairly certain Sanada's private club was the same one that Minato belonged to, and he hesitates for only a moment before hitting the _call_ button.

The phone rings a few times before Sanada picks up, and Nozomi exhales sharply as he says, "Hello?"

"This is Nozomi Suemitsu," he says, and waits a beat for the recognition to set in before he tries to say anything else.

"Oh," Sanada sounds surprised, but there's recognition in his voice—and Nozomi's glad, at least, that this part is going well. "What're you calling me for?"

"Um," he stutters, suddenly unsure of how to approach it. "I just got back to Iwatodai. I—heard about Minato, and thought you might know..."

He trails off, hoping Sanada will pick up his train of thought, but even his breathing seems to have stilled, on the other end. "I didn't realize you were friends," Sanada says, his tone a little tight. "Yeah, he died, the day after graduation. I can give you the address where he's buried if you—"

"I was wondering," Nozomi says, the words flowing all at once with a sudden burst of adrenaline, and Sanada cuts himself off sharply, "whether he's dead because of Nyx."

Sanada's silent for several seconds—so long, in fact, that Nozomi has to check that he hasn't been hung up on. "What are you talking about?" he says eventually, but there's a weird cadence to his tone, and the words seem almost choked out.

"The cult," Nozomi says, unable to admit he was a part of it himself, "they said the world was going to end on January 31. From what I read, he was sick for a month before he died, and..."

Sanada makes a weird noise, and Nozomi pauses, wondering whether Sanada and Minato were actually friends, rather than just clubmates. "I was wondering if he got Apathy Syndrome, since the dates line up," he says eventually, and can't quite keep the guilt from his voice.

"That cult was full of bullshit," Sanada says suddenly, his tone frightening and low, and Nozomi instinctively pulls his phone a few inches away from his ear. "Don't you dare insinuate he was a part of it."

"That's not what I meant!" Nozomi says, because obviously he knows that now, and anyhow, Minato had always harshly rebuffed his offers to join alongside him. "I meant—Takaya said that Nyx was going to come down and destroy humanity, but it didn't happen, but then Minato got sick and—"

He chokes off, because maybe he's being paranoid but maybe everything lines up a little too well, and Sanada's breathing a little heavily on the other end of the line. "That cult was bullshit," he says again, his voice strained, and doesn't follow it up with anything else.

"I _know,_ but what if they were right?" he presses, against his better judgment. "Does anyone actually know what caused Apathy Syndrome or how it spread? What if he—"

"What if he _was_ killed by Nyx?" Sanada snaps, and Nozomi chokes on his next words. "What good would it do any of us now?"

Nozomi gapes, sweat beading on his forehead as he wonders exactly what Sanada is getting at. He's mostly accepted that Nyx was a fairy tale, a nightmare cooked up by people for want of power and control, but he's never known Sanada to joke around, especially about stuff so important to him.

"I just wanted to—"

"You were a cult member?" Sanada bites out, and doesn't let Nozomi reply before continuing, "So you knew all about the Fall? Sure, I'll tell you—it's _your_ fault he's dead."

His mouth goes dry; the sweat falls in earnest down his face. "What?" he's able to croak out, because his theory had seemed more improbable by the second, but now—

"Nyx was real," Sanada says. "Takaya would have done anything to bring the apocalypse. The fact that you people gave up on life, and _wanted_ her to come, was enough to end the world."

"But the world didn't—"

" _Because Minato died to stop it!"_

Sanada's breathing heavily on the other end of the line; Nozomi has no idea what to say. After another moment, the line goes dead.

Nozomi pulls the phone away from his ear with a shaking hand, staring at the screen and wondering whether he should try and call him back. Sanada had known about the Fall, had seemed to know Takaya personally when he barely exposed his face even at group meetings. He had seemed serious when he talked of their friend's death, and Nozomi thinks he would have no reason to lie when they barely know each other.

But if Nyx really caused Minato's death—if Sanada was right, and _he_ was responsible—

If Minato knew exactly how dangerous Nyx was and continued to hang out with Nozomi, despite his obsession, what kind of friend has he ever been? What has he _ever_ done to deserve that kindness from the only person who's ever shown it to him?

Minato is dead by Nyx's hand (by _Nozomi's_ hand), and he knows such a thing can never be forgiven, no matter how much he wishes it. Even Minato—ever patient and kind, when he rambled for hours about food—would surely find this unforgivable, and Nozomi can imagine him turning his back on him, no matter how much he wishes and hopes that he would be forgiven.

He remembers Minato's pale face, in those last months, where he had tried to reason with him about Nyx and the cult, and Nozomi had blown him off as someone who didn't want to understand. He remembers the pain on his face but also remembers the way he kept coming back—saying there was a new restaurant he wanted to try, or that he was going to get a snack and wanted some company.

He looked terrible, the last time Nozomi saw him, in mid-February. He asked Nozomi to bring him to the best restaurant in town, that he'd pay for their meal. Even Nozomi, still reeling from the loss of the Fall, had seen that something was wrong. He had suggested a high-end sushi restaurant that he treated himself to on special occasions, and offered to split the bill—but Minato had only smiled. After they both ate their fill, he forked over almost a hundred thousand yen without a word.

Outside the restaurant, Minato had pulled out a to-go container with a truly unique smell, pressing it into Nozomi's hands and saying that it was similar to that first dish he brought him, months ago. "We're just calling it an odd morsel," he said with something like a laugh. "I've tried to eat it, but there's always been...side effects. I figure if anyone could stomach it, it's you."

Nozomi had almost taken offense, but the clear humor on Minato's face had softened his mood. He wonders whether Minato was dying, even then—and why he still went out of his way to spend time with him.

Maybe his friend did forgive him, after all. Nozomi wishes, but realizes he'll never really know.


	9. justice : emperor

_I was gonna finish and post this yesterday but then we saw Infinity War and I was emotionally compromised the rest of the night sldfkjaowef_

* * *

 **VIII: justice**

Two years ago, she never would have thought she'd be where she is now.

Student Council President of the prestigious Gekkoukan High—a great honor, she knows, and she follows in the footsteps of Mitsuru Kirijo (now the head of a trillion-yen company) as she tries to steer the school in ways that will best benefit the students, both current and future.

She knows she doesn't have a hope of filling Mitsuru's shoes, so she's decided to forge her own path, instead. She makes an effort to talk with students of all ages—even going so far as to talk to Gekkoukan Middle and Elementary—and determine what they need to thrive. She remembers what a mess she was in middle school, during her first year of high school—and tries to reach out to anyone who might need the same kind of help. She hopes that, even in small ways, she's making a difference.

Mitsuru's stayed in contact, and has expressed pride in her actions more than once—enough that Chihiro's found her face burning with embarrassment and gratitude. Hidetoshi's away at college, now, but he had helped plan her campaign for president, in his last few weeks of senior year—and she's fairly certain he's the reason she won at all.

She's doing everything she can to be the best Student Council President this school has ever seen, and she thinks that with where she's coming from, her personal growth alone is incredible. She's gone from spooking at the sight of boys to giving impassioned speeches in front of the entire student body—from sitting at the back of council meetings to speaking up and running things every time.

She's unbelievably proud of herself, and she thinks Minato would be proud of her, too.

He bought her a couple of books for Christmas even though she'd never had the guts to ask him on an official date; he never treated her any differently even though he had to have noticed her crush. She had only had the courage, once, to ask whether he had a girlfriend; he had made a bit of a face, shrugged, and said he wasn't interested in that kind of thing.

She had never known what he meant, and after his death, she hadn't known who to ask. The blonde girl who appeared to live in his dorm, since they came to school together every morning; Junpei Iori, his best friend who she saw him hanging out with often; Mitsuru, even, who trusted him enough to sign him onto the council two weeks after he arrived in Iwatodai. But after everything, it had seemed such an inconsequential question, and everyone she knew was equally distraught at the sudden news—so she kept her mouth shut, and decided it wasn't worth worrying about. It wasn't what Minato would have wanted from her, anyway.

He asked her in February, a couple weeks before his death, how she was liking those books, whether there were any more in the series she'd like to read. She hesitated, wondering whether mentioning such difficult-to-find books would be worth the hassle, but told him about them anyway. He listened intently, swaying slightly on his feet, and nodded when she was finished. "I'll see what I can do," he said with a little smile, and wandered toward the train station without another word.

Two weeks after the funeral, a package arrived for her in the mail; inside was every issue of that series that was always sold out online, the one she had all but given up on reading in print. _I hope you enjoy these. Thank you for being such a great friend. —Minato,_ read the note, and she cried for an hour that night, when she thought all her tears had long run dry.

She spoke with him several times in February and early March, as the school year drew to a close, as his health rapidly declined—as she grew more and more certain that something was deeply wrong with him. It wasn't the same debilitating anxiety she constantly felt; it wasn't even, she thinks, the heavy depression he tried to hide toward the beginning of the school year. It was something like resignation, like a loss, like a longing for something far away. "I'm fine," he always told her, when she tried to ask, in her own bumbling way. "I'm just feeling a little sick, but Mitsuru's booked me a doctor's appointment for tomorrow. I'm sure it'll go away soon."

She thought it was a lie at the time (is sure of it now), but there's little she can do of it now, a year and a half on, doing the work that Minato had always told her she could. She can only be thankful for everything she learned from his friendship, and how much she grew in a few short months. Minato had been approachable, at first, only because he was a boy kind enough to be patient with her fear; he was about as unassuming as the male form could get, with his short and slight stature, his hunched shoulders, his soft voice. Somewhere along the line this turned into a genuine friendship, and she's glad for it, even if they were only friends for nine months—even if, she's sure, Minato had much more important people to hang out with than her.

Even as she felt her own social anxiety lessen the more she talked with him, she thinks she saw the depression fading away from his own posture. He often looked exhausted, it's true, and he never became outgoing; but as the months went by, he looked happier—healthier—like she was helping him just as much as he was her. It's a silly thought, now, but she clings to it anyway because nearly two years on, the pain of his unexplained death still stings. If she has a way to memorialize him in her mind—if she finds comfort in their friendship and how it helped both of them—then she thinks nothing has any right to get in her way.

.

It's September, and the leaves are turning, and Gekkoukan is participating in a cultural exchange program with a small high school from Inaba, in the countryside.

Chihiro's prepared for this trip for weeks, knows that Gekkoukan has an image to uphold—knows that even if Yasogami High isn't as prestigious as their own school, the principal and every other executive are counting on her to make this trip perfect. She's spent sleepless nights hunched over her laptop, held hour-long phone calls with Mitsuru and Hidetoshi asking for advice—spent late afternoons at the school, arranging and re-arranging awards cases until everything looks perfect.

Two years ago, she probably would have collapsed from the stress. Now, she's worried, but the end goal is in sight; more than anything, it's exhilarating.

The day finally comes, and though she doesn't need to be on campus until ten, she's there almost three hours early, printing off schedules and fretting over small details as the clock slowly rolls forward.

Eventually a large bus pulls up in front of the school, and a crowd of teenagers in their summer uniforms pile out, clutching bags to their sides and looking around curiously. Chihiro sees many of them openly gaping at the gleaming gates, the perfectly manicured lawn—the view of the ocean they have in easy reach. She allows herself a private smile; Gekkoukan, no matter its checkered past, is truly an amazing establishment.

Her speech—written in part by Mitsuru, though her old friend would deny it—goes well, and she tries not to notice the boys in the crowd openly staring at her. There's a boy near the front with bleached hair and a muscle shirt who has to be almost two meters tall, and she tries not to shrink away from him and his friends as her speech continues. Her debilitating phobia may have receded, these last two years, but she's still uncomfortable with such huge men.

So focused on keeping her wits about her for the short talk, she forgets to hand out schedules to the students before they walk away for a tour of the grounds; she could cry at her incompetence. The only group left, of course, includes the hulking blond boy—and she swallows before approaching them. The shorter one with headphones had been gawking at her in a way that made her extremely uncomfortable, so she turns to the last boy in the group—he's tall, it's true, with gray hair, but there's something about him that's more trustworthy than even the two girls behind him.

He looks nothing like him, but she is reminded suddenly, inexplicably of Minato.

She swallows down the discomfort such a memory brings, holds out the stack of paper, and explains the situation; she has other duties to attend to, and does not have time to chase down the rest of the groups herself. The boy takes them after only a moment of staring, adjusts the stack against his shirt, and nods to her with a little smile. "No problem," he says, but stares for a moment longer than he probably should. Chihiro wishes she knew anything about how to deal with men, how to tell whether they're being creepy or she's being paranoid.

Even at the beginning, though, she was never truly scared of Minato—and she thinks the same feeling is unfolding in her chest as this boy turns to give his friend with the long hair a copy of the schedule. "Edogawa," she mutters, her brow furrowed, and then reads off a word that Chihiro thinks she should probably understand, after enduring his eccentric lectures for two and a half years.

"You'll have to excuse him," she says with a nervous little laugh, and they all turn to her again, the burly guy's face contorting in confusion. She forces herself to stand her ground, looking to the gray haired boy and the girls as she continues, "He's our school nurse, but he dabbles in the occult and gives guest lectures on it—tarot, palm reading, gods from across the world. His lecture will be strange, but they're almost never boring."

They all blink at her, unsure, but the boy's eyes narrow. "Tarot?" he echoes, and she frowns.

"You know, the fortune-telling deck," the girl in the green sweater says, a matching frown forming on her face. "You're not actually _into_ that, are you, Souji?"

Souji blinks, and shakes his head after a moment. "Sorry," he says with a lopsided grin. "Just got distracted, we should go."

Chihiro bids them farewell, a little light-headed as Souji brushes her sleeve as he passes. It's clearly accidental, since his friend is all but hanging off his arm, complaining about having lectures all day rather than a proper school vacation, but it's enough to set her mind reeling.

 _Justice. Justice. Justice._

It's a disorienting feeling, one she's had only once before: the day she walked Minato home, when she finally allowed herself to form a friendship with a boy. It had been terrifying and exhilarating, and she questioned herself for weeks after as to why she'd done it at all.

But her friendship with him had grown, and grown, and grown, and somehow he had become one of the most important people in her life. How does this boy, Souji, whom she has never met in her life, elicit the same reaction?

She feels warm and safe, like a child tucked in by their parent at night; she feels sibling familiarity like she never has, only child that she is. She feels deep trust and familial love, inexplicably, when presented with this boy—and she has to reorient herself for several seconds as the group makes their way up the stairs. Her hands twist around each other, having lost their paperwork, and she has to actively force herself not to drown in the confusion as she turns around to enter the school.

Minato has been dead for a year and a half; though she will always miss her friend, she's thought the pain of his loss has dulled over time. Now, this complete stranger has torn that wound open again in a way she cannot understand, with feelings that come from nowhere. Though she does not feel a bond with this boy—Souji, from the countryside—she feels echoes of something else as he glances back to her for half a moment.

A younger sister with trials of her own; a desperation to better herself to enrich the lives of those around her. Chihiro knows these things, though she cannot say how, and the unsurety peters away, leaving behind a sense of strength and warmth.

Minato had no family; she knows this, knows that his dormmates organized his funeral, gave his eulogy. She isn't sure how this boy is so deeply connected to him, but the warm feeling in her heart—just like the day she invited him to dinner, the closest she could bring herself to a date; just like the night of January 31 that she cannot remember—gives her strength of heart, and a resolve to do better by her friends.

She squares her shoulders, and takes a deep breath, and wills her hands to still; she strides back into her proud school with her head held high.

* * *

 **IV: emperor**

Hidetoshi knows Shujin Academy is corrupt from his first day on the job, but it's the only school in Tokyo with a history position open; he's already moved into his cramped apartment near the train station, and it's either this job or moving back to his parents' house in disgrace.

He swallows down his rage at Kobayakawa's willful ignorance; holds himself back from trying (and probably failing) to wrestle Kamoshida to the ground to punch his face in; and shares hopeless, terrified glances with the rest of the faculty. There's nothing he can do, as a second-year history teacher fresh out of university; even if he brought it to the police, Kawakami tells him in a hushed whisper, it would do nothing but get him fired.

"Do your best to protect the students," she tells him, a grimace on her face in this dim cafe. She asked him to grab a coffee with her, after he failed particularly badly at hiding his rage during a faculty meeting—and all but dragged him to a restaurant in Shibuya. "There's nothing we can do to stop him. Our best hope is that either a family with enough sway decides to attend Shujin, or that he keels over dead."

"This is _disgusting,_ " he snarls, and thinks of his blithe beliefs, at Gekkoukan and in college, that any situation could be corrected with education. He's been spoiled and sheltered, he supposes; if anyone had tried this at Gekkoukan High, Mitsuru Kirijo would have come down on their heads before they could _blink._

"I know," she says, and runs a hand through her hair. Hidetoshi looks at her— _really_ looks at her—and sees bone-deep exhaustion in her eyes. "I'm here because I have nowhere else to go. It's the same for the rest of the faculty—Shujin's really the bottom of the barrel, no matter what Principal Kobayakawa says. Anyone who gets an offer anywhere else gets the hell out."

He grimaces, and thinks of the brutal practices he's been watching in secret. He thinks of the new first years, bright eyed and hopeful a few weeks ago, and tries to block out the deadened eyes he saw yesterday. Black eyes and sprained knees and broken wrists, and no one gets a break. "I have to whip you into shape for nationals," Kamoshida said, and spiked a volleyball straight for that poor girl's face—and Hidetoshi knows this isn't training so much as abuse.

But Kawakami's been here longer than he has, even if only by a few years, and she's right—someone needs to protect these children. He was sixteen not too long ago, but seeing their downtrodden faces provokes something visceral in his heart—something like the rage from the cigarette butt incident, years ago. Back then, the situation was inconsequential, and Minato tried to talk him down from it as best he could.

Back then, his friend was right. But Hidetoshi thinks that if Minato could see Shujin now, he'd tear the school up by its roots just to protect all these kids who can't protect themselves.

.

The track team is disbanded after a spunky first year, Sakamato, gives Kamoshida lip and ends up with a compound fracture in his leg. He comes back to school a week later with crutches and downcast eyes, and bears the hatred of the rest of the student body.

A few weeks later, he storms out of school after lunch with a red face and furious eyes, and arrives the next day with bleached hair and a week's worth of detentions. Hidetoshi doesn't often see him, but he can easily see his barely suppressed anger—and more than anything, he wishes he could take this boy's rage and direct it toward something _good._

There's rumors that the biracial first-year girl is dating Kamoshida, but Hidetoshi looks at her and sees only fear and desperation in her eyes as she tries to blend into crowds to avoid his attention. He wishes to help her, but any contact would be suspicious—and with the way she stares like a frightened rabbit at any male faculty member (so reminiscent of Chihiro during her first year, and it makes his heart ache), he thinks anything he might try would do more harm than good.

Haru Okumura is in his homeroom, and as soon as he hears the name he wonders with hope whether such a powerful man as her father could stand up to someone like Kamoshida. Surely, the CEO of a huge fast food franchise would have enough money and standing to—?

But Haru has shown no interest in the volleyball team, and usually keeps her head down in class. All Hidetoshi can find on her father are the shady labor practices he uses in his factories and offices; if anything, he's just as bad as Kamoshida.

Summer bleeds into fall, and nothing changes except the bruises on his students' faces, and Hidetoshi finds his rage growing by the day. He sends a shot-in-the-dark email to Mitsuru about the situation, and doesn't get a response. The only thing stopping him from calling her corporation directly is that she may very well not remember him at all. It's been years since they last talked, after all, and they were never especially close—but if there were ever a time to call in the big guns, he thinks this is it.

Time passes, and the volleyball team barely misses making it to nationals; every member of the starting lineup is limping the next day. Hidetoshi does his best to swallow his anger, and talks to prospective students for next year, and tries to impart to them how desperately he _does not wish_ for them to join the volleyball team.

All of them squint at him uncertainly, and he worries that subtlety has never been his strong suit—but at least a few of them seem less excited about enrolling than they were before. Hidetoshi will take what he can get, and prays that enrollment is down next year, no matter what it will do to his paycheck.

.

Enrollment's down by almost twenty percent, and Hidetoshi does his best to keep the smugness off his face at the faculty meeting over spring break as Kobayakawa rails about budget cuts and _what will this do to the volleyball team?_

Kawakami grins at him, small and private, on their way out, and Kamoshida punches a locker, and Hidetoshi returns home for the day, feeling lighter than he has in a year.

March 6, 2016; it's been six years since he died, and it's a month until school starts, and Hidetoshi hopes that he's doing his friend proud, so far removed from their high school days as he is. He keeps a photo of Minato in his wallet, and a selfie they took is framed in his living room. He thinks he can't quite remember the way his quiet voice sounded, anymore, or exactly what kind of music he always had blaring from those non-regulation headphones.

He doesn't remember these details, and that hurts, but he thinks he remembers the important part—the way Minato always did what was right, and stood up to those who did wrong, and protected those who were hurting or afraid. Hidetoshi remembers Chihiro's incredible transformation, and remembers the stress lifting from Mitsuru's shoulders, and remembers how much he learned about justice and equity from that boy who rarely even raised his voice.

Minato may be frozen forever at sixteen, but that only raises Hidetoshi's fury higher—because every time he talked to his friend, he always seemed to have something important to do, something that could change the world. No matter his age, he was determined to help others—even if Hidetoshi never understood what it was that he did—and he carried it out to the best of his ability.

Now, he has hundreds of sixteen year olds under his charge that could be just as amazing as his friend. If Kamoshida ruins that for any of them, Hidetoshi will destroy him with his own two hands.

.

There's a transfer student in Kawakami's class this year, with floppy hair and thick glasses and hunched shoulders, and the school's made up its mind about him even before he walks through its doors.

Someone spread the rumor; Hidetoshi's sure it was Kamoshida, but has no evidence, and so can only be as kind as possible to Kurusu (and Takamaki—by some stroke of irony—sitting in front of him) in the classes he teaches. There's a sort of familiar aura about him, though Hidetoshi cannot put his finger on it; he casts this feeling aside quickly to make room for the indignation. A criminal conviction for protecting a woman from assault—Akira Kurusu should be _celebrated,_ not arrested and sent hundreds of miles from his parents to the worst school in the country, the only school that would take him.

"We needed something to raise our enrollment count and our reputation," Kobayakawa explained in the faculty office as several teachers audibly groaned, and Hidetoshi has never wanted to strangle him more.

Kamoshida's gotten worse—more bold, brazen, obvious in his abuses, and more than once, Hidetoshi sends a student home for the day when they come in half-concussed, scarcely able to put weight on one leg, almost crying from the pain they're in. He watches his students' faces closely, and sees the fury on Sakamato's and the rebellion on Kurusu's as they sneak to the rooftop every afternoon after school.

He watches them go, and covers for them when he can. He's not sure what they're up to, but it can't possibly be worse than what these awful adults are getting away with.

.

Shiho Suzui jumps, and Hidetoshi cannot stop his hands from shaking as he sits in his living room that night, dialing Mitsuru Kirijo's personal cell and holding his phone to his ear.

She doesn't pick up—likely doesn't recognize the number—and so Hidetoshi leaves a furious voicemail, explaining the situation and all but begging her for help. He gets a call the next morning, early, before he's left for the station, and Mitsuru's voice is tight on the other end of the line as she says, "Tell me what you need."

.

Mitsuru makes an appearance at Shujin that afternoon. Though very few people seem to recognize her, most of the students are appropriately intimidated by her expensive suit, long hair, and ice-cold expression as she sweeps her way directly to Kobayakawa's office. Hidetoshi dearly wishes to listen in on the conversation, but he has a class to teach, and so he trudges reluctantly up the stairs.

(Kurusu is in attendance, but Takamaki is not, and he wonders whether she's still at the hospital, watching over her friend.)

Mitsuru's already left by the time school lets out, but not five minutes after he returns home, she calls him again. "He refused to listen to me, no matter what I threatened him with," she opens with, and Hidetoshi's stomach drops. If even one of the most powerful people in the country can't—" _But,_ that just means we'll need to deal with this internally. Can you keep me updated on any new developments in the school?"

"Of course," he says, a little thrown, and knows better than to ask what _deal with this internally_ means. "Just—try to do this quickly. Suzui wasn't the only one who was abused, and she may not be the last to…"

"I understand," she says, clipped, but Hidetoshi isn't offended. Both of them have experienced enough dead high schoolers to last a lifetime. "Update me periodically, and I'll do the same."

The call ends, and Hidetoshi stares at his phone screen for a moment before looking to the photo on his cramped end table. Minato smiles out at him, his eyes crinkled in cheer, and Hidetoshi only hopes that his friend thinks he is doing enough. He hasn't thought of him this much in years, but faced with such injustice, it's the only thing he can think of. If Minato were here...

He would have noticed Suzui's desperation; he would have known what to say to her before she ever stepped foot on that roof. He had an incredible way with people, despite saying very little, and Hidetoshi's sure he would have a better idea of how to take down Kamoshida for good.

He isn't here anymore, though—he hasn't been here for a long time—and Hidetoshi knows that he's the adult, now. If he wants to make a difference in the world, he's going to have to do it himself.

.

There's a bizarre calling card, and then Kamoshida's extended leave of absence, and he relates both of these to Mitsuru as they happen. "We're working on digging up concrete evidence against him," she says, when he asks in confusion whether the cards are her own doing. "We wouldn't dare expose ourselves like that without ironclad proof."

Hidetoshi isn't particularly surprised (and figures Mitsuru would never employ anyone with such garish taste, anyway), so only watches the student body closely for the next few days, trying to figure out what's different.

Takamaki is furious and determined, and there is a fire in her eyes that he has never seen there before. Sakamato is all but giddy—he's never been the best actor, even when his friends whack him over the head for talking a little too loudly—and he loudly crows that maybe these _Phantom Thieves of Hearts_ are right after all, that Kamoshida will fall from grace.

And Kurusu is quiet—so quiet, just like Minato—and keeps a black cat in his desk that Hidetoshi pretends not to notice, and his eyes are sharp as he looks at his classmates, those who are being abused and those who refuse to give him the time of day.

Even before the Phantom Thieves hit the news, even before Kamoshida turns himself in, Hidetoshi thinks it isn't very hard to puzzle out who's behind it all.

But Suzui's woken up, and Kamoshida's confessed, and Takamaki is crying in the auditorium as the rest of the school disperses back to their classrooms. Kurusu stays behind with her, a tentative arm around her shoulders in comfort, speaking quietly to try and calm her down.

The sense of deja vu is back; Hidetoshi sees his dead friend in this lanky boy, in his soft words and comforting expression. He sees Minato for the first time in six years, clear as day, and he blinks hard, focusing again on his two students. "You should get back to class," he says kindly, his voice hushed, standing a respectable distance away. "Ms. Kawakami will be worried."

Takamaki rubs at her eyes, turning her head away in embarrassment; Kurusu releases her shoulders, his cheeks turning a bit red as he glances over to Hidetoshi. He nods once before walking toward the auditorium doors.

Hidetoshi watches them go, and pulls up his phone to relate Kamoshida's confession to Mitsuru. It's something incredible—beyond belief—but if Kurusu and Sakamato and Takamaki really can expose disgusting crimes, then he's loath to stop them. He's more sure than he ever has been that his friend would approve of it; and he feels a smile growing on his face as he listens to Mitsuru's phone ring.

Teenagers stealing hearts to ruin the lives of heartless criminals: he finds he can't fault them a bit for such a thing. The most important lesson he's ever learned is that kindness and goodness trump even the law, if the law is unjust—and he'd be turning his back on the single defining experience of his life if he began to disagree with these kids now.

Somewhere, he thinks Minato must be smiling.

* * *

 _This chapter is full of self indulgent headcanons, but I couldn't help myself. Chihiro canonically meets the Investigation Team. Hidetoshi, assuming he took a 4 year teaching degree and started working right out of school, could definitely have taken a job in Tokyo the year before the Phantom Thieves formed. It's way too perfect, and it's my headcanon now so you get to have it as well!_


	10. death : universe

_WHEEEEEEEEEE_

 _thanks for reading, guys :)_

* * *

 **XIII: death**

They are timeless, suspended in space; the Seal is absolute, and as Pharos-Ryoji-Nyx struggles for consciousness, the only thing they know is that they will never be free again.

Ryoji knows this, and rejoices in disbelief. Pharos knows this, and mourns. Nyx knows this only objectively, and feels nothing. Emotions are an extraordinarily human tendency, after all, and the incarnation of death has little do with such things. If Nyx were aware, perhaps it would worry that its other manifestations were acting so very like the creatures it is fated to destroy.

Pharos was a perpetual child, the creation of happenstance when Death itself was sealed in a little boy's body. Ryoji was a young man, who loved to flirt and loved to laugh and enjoyed every moment of the life he was given before he remembered his true calling. Pharos was only ever a figment of Minato's imagination, a manifestation of Death's presence in his soul. Ryoji was…

Well, maybe if he lies to himself enough, he can pretend that he was human for those few short weeks.

("You're our _friend—_ we're not going to kill you!"

"I'm not your friend. I'm not even human. I'm just here to end the world, and there's nothing any of you can do to stop it.")

Minato seemed convinced, for whatever reason, that Nyx could be stopped if they just tried hard enough. Ryoji had wanted to cry at the desperation on all of their faces—what could a group of six teenagers, an android, a child, and a dog hope to do against the most constant force that humanity has ever known? What could they have done when Death had already taken so much from all of them?

What could they have possibly done to stop the Fall when the billions of other people on their Earth were calling out desperately for its coming?

It's a long time, he thinks, before he realizes the answer. It is when he wonders how a single human soul could stop the power of Death itself that he finally starts to understand.

 _The bonds you have created are extraordinary,_ a strange, otherworldly voice echoes in his mind, and Ryoji tries his hardest to remember. _Because of your friends' belief in your power, you have qualified for a miracle._

Ryoji met precious few of Minato's friends. The young man at the shrine who radiated Death and Hope in equal measure; the boy at school who enjoyed knitting even more than he did; his dormmates, of course, who looked to that young, quiet boy as their leader without question—the boy who could, right from the start, put a gun to his head and pull the trigger.

Before he remembered, Ryoji knew nothing of Shadows or Evokers or the Dark Hour. Now, he knows everything, and knows it is his fault that Minato and his friends were forced to take up arms against the impossible. But he also knows, suddenly, that despite all of this, he had a hand in Minato's miracle as well.

By all rights, humanity should be gone. The Fall was imminent and unstoppable, and Ryoji had begged them to give up hope so that they could die peacefully and without fear. Nyx does not have the capacity for cruelty, after all; in one moment, they would be celebrating the end of their school year, and in the next, they would simply cease to exist.

It would have been so easy for them, and Ryoji—with his human emotions and arcane knowledge muddled together—could not understand their desperation to fight on. There was nothing they could do. They would die in terror, in agony, in uselessness as the Earth disintegrated before their eyes.

And then it didn't happen. Ryoji, somewhere in the depths of Nyx's being, remembers Pharos giving a sharp cry, and remembers hope blooming in his heart like he has never felt before. He remembers a blinding white Persona, and remembers his friend, and remembers thinking that he has never believed in anyone like he has Minato.

Erebus, always close by, has been shoved to the other side of this impenetrable barrier, and Ryoji knows that it will never draw close again. He knows this from the moment he is aware, but it is a little longer before he knows how this has happened.

He knows Minato's soul just as well as he knows Nyx, after spending ten years inhabiting it. It is not difficult to recognize. Ryoji feels its presence here in the abyss, and for a moment does not understand what it is doing here.

The Seal is solid, strong, beautiful, sad. If Ryoji were corporeal, he would wish to reach out and touch it—but instead he can only contemplate its existence, wonder why he feels drawn to it just as he did Minato.

When he realizes what his friend has done, if he were human, he'd be sobbing.

Sacrifice—he has thought he understood humans, at least at a working level. He thought he _was_ one, after all, for a precious few weeks in November, and though there were some things that escaped his grasp, he understood enough that he never questioned it too deeply.

Never did the thought of giving up one's soul for the sake of an entire planet cross his mind.

And of course Minato would be the one to do so. The boy with too many friends whom he managed to balance flawlessly around his Tartarus trips—the boy who could summon Death from his soul without batting an eye. The boy with infinite potential, said the peculiar man with the long nose and the tarot cards. A curiosity, said the woman in blue beside him.

A hero, Ryoji thinks, and he wishes he were human, if only so he could thank his friend for everything he has done. The Great Seal, impenetrable and absolute; a teenager who changed the world, because no adult had the courage or the will to do so.

A friend who made the incarnation of the apocalypse feel welcome on the very planet he was meant to destroy—and Ryoji retreats into his own consciousness, exhausted, distressed, and wishing this could have ended any other way.

Minato performed a miracle, on the night of January 31—but Ryoji thinks his friend's life, his soul and kindness and _love_ , were a miracle unto themselves. With such things heavy on his heart—with an infinity to ponder them—he thinks that even if the circumstances are tragic, he's selfish and grateful for the fact that his dearest friend is so close within his reach.

* * *

 **XXI: universe**

The Great Seal is a miracle, and the figure hanging atop it weeps, and Elizabeth is leaving the Velvet Room.

"What do you think you're doing?" Margaret demands. "There are better battles to be fought," Lavenza argues. "You're making a mistake," Theo says, shaking his head.

"If you leave, you may never be able to come back," Igor says quietly. He stands before her in this stationary elevator, but he does not stop her.

"I don't care," she says, and grips his Compendium tighter to her chest. This is the one thing she must do with her existence, if she is to justify her power and her pride.

(Minato Arisato was a guest in this Room for less than ten months, and his story is already finished. Margaret is impatient, and looks ahead into humanity's future; she sees a boy who must seek the truth, at any cost. Lavenza looks further, curious, and sees nothing but ruin. Elizabeth instead considers the past, and thinks that if Minato were alive, he would be able to help in the coming wars.)

(Perhaps she is fooling herself. Perhaps she is being selfish.)

(Perhaps she doesn't care.)

"He doesn't deserve such a fate," she says sharply to the group before her, and four sets of piercing eyes stare back. "If there is a way to retrieve his soul without breaking the Seal, I will find it."

"There is not," Igor says, his voice low as he bows his head. "His contract states clearly that he would accept responsibility for his actions, and he has done so. Who are you to break such a bond?"

He wants to speak of _bonds?_ Elizabeth thinks of the countless strange items that he brought her without question, a little smile on his face as she marveled at them. She thinks back to the times they ventured together into his world—the fountains of water calling for a donation to their gods, the moving stairs that presented a trial to anyone who wished to cross them. She knows she only saw one city among thousands—millions, perhaps. She never thought to ask how large the human world is. Maybe, now, she'll find out.

"You promised him a miracle," she shoots back, and has never once been so rude to her Master. Perhaps it is because he is her master no longer. "Instead, you gave him a death sentence."

"He chose this path," he says, staring at her levelly, "because he was strong enough to do what he must."

"That wasn't a choice," she says, sharper, and Margaret's frown grows deeper. "It was his life or the end of the world—he wouldn't have given it a second thought!"

Lines form on Theo's face, and Elizabeth glances to him. She wonders whether the Wild Card that never was, the girl that Theo could have attended, would have made the same choice. "Regardless, it is done now," Igor says, sweeping his hand at nothing. "Our Guest gained the Universe Arcana, and cast the Great Seal. I understand your feelings, Elizabeth, but there is little for you to do now."

She glowers, and shakes her head. "You're wrong," she says. "I will find a way to free him, because he is my friend, and I promised to help him in every way I could."

Igor sighs, and gestures toward the door. "May you have good luck in your travels, then," he says, though there is a small, enigmatic smile on his face. Elizabeth does not care to decipher it.

"I will," she says, and thinks of Minato: his kindness and courage and charm, the dozens of friends he made around the city—the time he carved out to show her his world, between every other busy moment of his life.

She knows Minato better than anyone, perhaps, except Igor; after his incredible display of power at the moment of the Fall, after she saw the infallible bonds he shares with his friends, she knows he deserves a life unfettered to Death and its followers. She knows that of every human in the world, Minato is special—and he does not deserve the fate to which he has resigned himself.

The others' gazes follow her out the door, but Elizabeth does not look back. She steps into Earth's blinding sunlight, and thinks only of the boy who did not hesitate to save the world.


End file.
